EMPIRE 
BUILDERS 


FRANCIS 
LVNDE 


'I  won't  attempt  to  apologize — it's  beyond  all  that"     Page  32 


EMPIRE  BUILDERS 


FRANCIS   LYNDE 

Author  of 

The  Quickening,  The  Grafters 
A  Fool  for  Love,  etc. 


With  Illustrations  by 

JAY  HAMBIDGE 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT  1907 
FRANCIS    LYNDE 

AUGUST 


PRESS  OF 

BRAUNWORTH  &  CO- 

BOOKBINDERS  AND  PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN,   N.  Y. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

I  A  MASTER  OF  MEN         .  .1 

II  A  SPIKED  SWITCH  13 

III  Loss  AND  DAMAGE         .  ,30 

IV  COLD  STORAGE 

V  WANTED:  THIRTY-FIVE  MILLIONS       .  47 

VI  THE  AWAKENING  OF  CHARLES  EDWARD  59 

VII   HAMMER  AND  TONGS     .  66 

VIII  THE  AUTOMATIC  AIR      .  75 

IX  THE  RACE  TO  THE  SLOW          .  90 

X  THE  SINEWS  OF  WAR    .           . '  1°° 

XI  HURRY  ORDERS              .  12° 

XII  THE  ENTERING  WEDGE            .  141 

XIII  THE  BARBARIANS           .  155 

XIV  THE  DRAW-BAR  PULL  .  166 
XV  AN  UNWILLING  HOST     .  177 

XVI  THE  TRUTHFUL  ALTITUDES      .  .        186 

XVII  A  NIGHT  OF  ALARMS      .           .  •        198 

XVIII  THE  MORNING  AFTER     .           .  217 

XIX  THE  RELUCTANT  WHEELS        .           .  238 

L8057 


CONTENTS— Continued 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XX  THE  CONSPIRATORS       .  .  .  .254 

XXI  THE  MILLS  OF  THE  GODS          .  .  .271 

XXII  THE  MAN  ON  HORSEBACK         .  .  .285 

XXIII  THE  DEADLOCK 311 

XXIV  Ruiz  GREGORIO  .....        325 
XXV  THE  SIEGE  OF  THE  NADIA        .  .  .336 

XXVI  THE  STAR  OF  EMPIRE  362 


EMPIRE    BUILDERS 


A  MASTER  OF   MEN 

Engine  Number  206,  narrow  gauge,  was  pushing,  or 
rather  failing  to  push,  the  old-fashioned  box-plow 
through  the  crusted  drifts  on  the  uptilted  shoulder  of 
Plug  Mountain,  at  altitude  ten  thousand  feet,  with  the 
mercury  at  twelve  below  zero.  There  was  a  wind — the 
winter  day  above  timber-line  without  its  wind  is  as 
rare  as  a  thawing  Christmas — and  it  cut  like  knives 
through  any  garmenting  lighter  than  fur  or  leather. 
The  cab  of  the  206  was  old  and  weather-shaken,  and 
Ford  pulled  the  collar  of  his  buffalo  coat  about  his  ears 
when  the  grunting  of  the  exhaust  and  the  shrilling  of 
the  wheels  on  the  snow-shod  rails  stopped  abruptly. 

"Gar-r-r!"  snarled  Gallagher,  the  red-headed  Irish 
engineer,  shutting  off  the  steam  in  impotent  rage.  "The 
power  is  not  in  this  dommed  ould  camp-kittle  sewin' 
machine!  'Tis  heaven's  pity  they  would  n't  be  givin' 

1 


2  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

us  wan  man-sized,,  fightin'  lokimotive  on  this  ind  of  the 
line,  Misther  Foord." 

Ford,  superintendent  and  general  autocrat  of  the 
Plug  Mountain  branch  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern, 
climbed  down  from  his  cramped  seat  on  the  fireman's 
box  and  stood  scowling  at  the  retracting  index  of  the 
steam-gauge.  When  he  was  on  his  feet  beside  the  little 
Irishman,  you  saw  that  he  was  a  young  man,  well-built, 
square-shouldered  and  athletic  under  the  muffling  of 
the  shapeless  fur  greatcoat;  also,  that  in  spite  of  the 
scowl,  his  clean-shaven  face  was  strong  and  manly  and 
good  to  look  upon. 

"Power !"  he  retorted.  "That's  only  one  of  the  hun 
dred  things  they  don't  give  us,  Mike.  Look  at  that 
steam-gauge — freezing  right  where  she  stands !" 

"'Tis  so,"  assented  Gallagher.  "She'd  be  dead  and 
shtiff  in  tin  minutes  be  the  clock  if  we'd  lave  her  be  in 
this  drift." 

Ford  motioned  the  engineer  aside  and  took  the  throt 
tle  himself.  It  was  the  third  day  out  from  Cherubusco, 
the  station  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain;  and  in  the 
eight-and-forty  hours  the  engine,  plow  and  crew  of 
twenty  shovelers  had,  by  labor  of  the  cruelest,  opened 
eleven  of  the  thirteen  blockaded  miles  isolating  Saint's 
Rest,  the  mining-camp  end-of-track  in  the  high  basin 
at  the  head  of  the  pass. 

The  throttle  opened  with  a  jerk  under  the  superin- 


A   MASTER   OF   MEN  3 

tendent's  hand.  There  was  a  snow-choked  drumming 
of  the  exhaust,  and  the  driving-wheels  spun  wildly  in 
the  flurry  beneath.  But  there  was  no  inch  of  forward 
motion,  and  Ford  gave  it  up. 

"We're  against  it,"  he  admitted.  "Back  her  down 
and  we'll  put  the  shovelers  at  it  again  while  you're 
nursing  her  up  and  getting  more  steam.  We're  going 
to  make  it  to  Saint's  Rest  to-day  if  the  Two-six  has  to 
go  in  on  three  legs." 

Gallagher  pulled  the  reversing  lever  into  the  back 
gear  and  sent  the  failing  steam  whistling  into  the  chilled 
cylinders  with  cautious  little  jerks  at  the  throttle.  The 
box-plow  came  out  of  the  clutch  of  its  snow  vise  with 
shrillings  as  of  a  soul  in  torment,  and  the  bucking  out 
fit  screeched  coldly  down  over  the  snowy  rails  to  the 
"let-up,"  where  the  shovelers'  box-car  had  been  un 
coupled. 

Ford  swung  off  to  turn  out  the  shoveling  squad ;  and 
presently  the  laborers,  muffled  to  the  eyes,  were  filing 
past  the  206  to  break  a  path  for  the  plow.  Gallagher 
was  on  the  running-board  with  his  flare  torch,  thawing 
out  an  injector.  He  marked  the  cheerful  swing  of  the 
men  and  gave  credit  where  it  was  due. 

"  'Tis  a  full-grown  man,  that,"  he  commented,  mean 
ing  Ford.  "Manny's  the  wan  would  be  huggin'  the  warm 
boiler-head  these  times,  and  shtickin'  his  head  out  of 
the  windy  to  holler,  cGVan,  boys;  pitch  it  out  lively 


4  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

now,  and  be  dommed  to  yez !'  But  Misther  Foord  ain't 
built  the  like  o'  that.  He'll  be  as  deep  in  that  freezin' 
purgatory  up  yander  in  th'  drift  as  the  foremist  wan  of 
thim." 

The  Irishman's  praise  was  not  unmerited.  Whatever 
his  failings,  and  he  groaned  under  his  fair  human  share 
of  them,  Stuart  Ford  had  the  gift  of  leadership.  Be 
fore  he  had  been  a  month  on  the  branch  as  its  "old 
man"  and  autocrat,  he  had  won  the  good-will  and 
loyalty  of  the  rank  and  file,  from  the  office  men  in  the 
headquarters  to  the  pick-and-shovel  contingent  on  the 
sections.  Even  the  blockade-breaking  laborers — tempo 
rary  helpers  as  they  were — stood  by  him  manfully  in 
the  sustained  battle  with  the  snow.  Ford  spared  them 
when  he  could,  and  they  knew  it. 

"Warm  it  up,  boys !"  he  called  cheerily,  climbing  to 
the  top  of  the  frozen  drift  to  direct  the  attack.  "It's 
been  a  long  fight,  but  we're  in  sight  of  home  now. 
Come  up  here  with  your  shovels,  Olsen,  and  break  it 
down  from  the  top.  It's  the  crust  that  plugs  Mike's 
wedge." 

He  looked  the  fighting  leader,  standing  at  the  top  of 
the  wind-swept  drift  and  crying  on  his  shovelers.  It 
was  the  part  he  had  chosen  for  himself  in  the  game  of 
life,  and  he  quarreled  only  when  the  stake  was  small, 
as  in  this  present  man-killing  struggle  with  the  snow 
drifts.  The  Plug  Mountain  branch  was  the  sore  spot 


A   MASTER   OF    MEN  5 

in  the  Pacific  Southwestern  system ;  the  bad  investment 
at  which  the  directors  shook  their  heads,  and  upon 
which  the  management  turned  the  coldest  of  shoulders. 
It  barely  paid  its  own  operating  expenses  in  summer, 
and  the  costly  snow  blockades  in  winter  went  to  the 
wrong  side  of  the  profit  and  loss  account. 

This  was  why  Ford  had  been  scheming  and  planning 
for  a  year  and  more  to  find  a  way  of  escape;  not  for 
himself,  but  for  the  discredited  Plug  Mountain  line.  It 
was  proving  a  knotty  problem,  not  to  say  an  insoluble 
one.  Ford  had  attacked  it  with  his  eyes  open,  as  he  did 
most  things;  and  he  was  not  without  a  suspicion  that 
President  Colbrith,  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern,  had 
known  to  the  full  the  hopelessness  of  the  mountain  line 
when  he  dictated  the  letter  which  had  cost  one  of  the 
great  Granger  roads  its  assistant  engineer  in  charge 
of  construction,  transferring  an  energetic  young  man 
with  ambitions  from  the  bald  plains  of  the  Dakotas  to 
the  snow-capped  shoulders  of  the  Rockies. 
|  Originally  the  narrow  gauge  had  been  projected  and 
partly  built  by  a  syndicate  of  Denver  capitalists,  who 
were  under  the  hallucination,  then  prevalent,  that  any 
railroad  penetrating  the  mountains  in  any  direction, 
and  having  Denver  for  its  starting  point,  must  neces 
sarily  become  at  once  a  dividend-paying  carrier  for  the 
mines,  actual  or  to  be  discovered. 

Failing  to  tap  their  bonanza  freight-producer  on  the 


6  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

route  up  Blue  Canyon,  the  projectors — small  fish  in  the 
great  money-pool — had  talked  vaguely  of  future  exten 
sions  to  Salt  Lake,  to  San  Francisco,  to  Puget  Sound, 
or  to  some  other  of  the  f  ar-beyonds,  and  had  even  gone 
the  length  of  surveying  a  line  over  Plug  Pass  and  down 
the  valley  of  the  Pannikin  on  the  Pacific  slope  of  the 
range.  But  they  had  prudently  stopped  building;  and 
the  pause  continued  until  the  day  of  the  great  silver 
strike  at  Saint's  Rest. 

The  new  carbonate  beds  chanced  to  lie  within  easy 
rifle-shot  of  the  summit  of  Plug  Pass ;  in  other  words, 
they  were  precisely  on  the  line  of  the  extension  survey 
of  the  narrow  gauge.  The  discovery  was  a  piece  of  sheer 
luck  for  the  amateur  railroad  builders.  For  a  time,  as 
all  the  world  knows,  Saint's  Rest  headed  the  mining 
news  column  in  all  the  dailies,  and  the  rush  for  the 
new  camp  fairly  swamped  the  meager  carrying  facili 
ties  of  the  incomplete  line  and  the  stages  connecting  its 
track-end  with  the  high-mountain  Mecca  of  the  treas 
ure-seekers. 

Then,  indeed,  the  Denver  syndicate  saw  its  long  de 
ferred  opportunity  and  grasped  it.  Long  purses  might 
be  lacking,  but  not  shrewd  heads.  The  unfinished  Plug 
Mountain  was  immediately  bonded  for  more  than  it 
ever  promised  to  be  worth,  and  in  the  hottest  heat  of 
the  forwarding  strife  it  was  extended  at  the  rate  of  a 
mile  a  day  until  the  welcome  screech  of  its  locomotive 


A   MASTER   OF    MEN  7 

whistles  was  added  to  the  perfervid  clamor  of  the  new 
camp  in  the  Plug  Pass  basin. 

The  goal  reached,  the  Denver  folk  took  a  fresh  leaf 
out  of  the  book  of  shrewdness.  Holding  the  completed 
line  only  long  enough  to  skim  the  cream  of  the  rush 
earnings,,  they  sold  their  stock  at  a  sound  premium  to 
the  Pacific  Southwestern,  pocketed  their  winnings  can- 
nily,  and  escaped  a  short  half-year  before  the  slump  in 
silver,  and  the  consequent  collapse  of  Saint's  Rest,  came 
to  establish  the  future  Waterloo  for  Napoleonic  young 
superintendents  in  the  Southwestern's  service. 

This  was  all  ancient  history  when  Ford  left  the  Gran 
ger  road  to  climb,  at  President  Colbrith's  behest,  into 
the  Plug  Mountain  saddle;  and  a  round  half-dozen  of 
the  young  Napoleons  had  been  broken  before  he  put 
foot  in  stirrup  for  the  mounting.  While  his  attacking 
of  the  problem  had  been  open-eyed,  he  had  not  stopped 
to  specialize  in  the  ancient  history  of  the  Plug  Mountain 
branch.  When  he  did  specialize,  his  point  of  view  was 
pretty  clearly  defined  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Richard  Frisbie, 
of  St.  Paul,  written  after  he  had  been  for  six  months 
the  master  of  the  Plug  Mountain  destinies. 

"I'm  up  against  it,  good  and  solid,"  was  the  way  he 
phrased  it  to  Frisbie.  "My  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of 
"two  streaks  of  rust  and  a  right-of-way'  has  never  paid 
a  net  dollar  since  the  boom  broke  at  Saint's  Rest,  and 
under  present  conditions  it  never  will.  If  I  had  known 


8  EMPIRE   BUILDEES 

the  history  of  the  road  when  President  Colbrith  went 
fishing  for  me — as  I  didn't — I  wouldn't  have  touched 
the  job  with  a  ten-foot  pole. 

"But  now  I'm  here,  I'm  going  to  do  something  with 
my  two  streaks  of  rust  to  make  them  pay — make  a  spoon 
or  spoil  a  horn.  Just  what  shall  be  done  I  haven't  de 
cided  fully,  but  I  have  a  notion  in  the  back  part  of  my 
head,  and  if  it  works  out,  I  shall  need  you  first  of  all. 
Will  you  come  ? 

"Have  I  told  you  in  any  of  my  earlier  letters  that  I 
have  personally  earned  the  ill-will  of  General  Manager 
North?   I  have,  and  it  is  distinct  from  and  in  addition 
to  his  hostility  for  the  unearning  branch  for  which  I  am 
responsible.    I'm  sorry  for  it,  because  I  may  need  his 
good  word  for  my  inchoate  scheme  later  on.  It  came  up 
over  some  maintenance-of-way  charges.  He  is  as  shrewd 
as  he  is  unscrupulous,  and  he  knows  well  how  to  pile  the 
sins  of  the  congregation  on  the  back  of  the  poor  scape 
goat.   To  make  a  better  showing  for  the  main  line,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  show  what  a  swilling  pig  the  Plug 
Mountain  is,  he  had  the  branch  charged  up  with  a  lot  of 
material  we  didn't  get.    Naturally,   I   protested— and 
was  curtly  told  to  mind  my  own  business,  which  had  no 
ramifications  reaching  into  the  accounting  department. 
Then  I  threatened  to  carry  it  over  his  head  to  President 
Colbrith;  whereupon  I  gained  my  point  temporarily, 
and  lost  a  possible  stepping-stone  to  success. 


A   MASTER   OF   MEN",  9 

"None  the  less,  I  am  going  to  win  out  if  it  costs  me 
the  best  year  of  my  life.  I'm  going  to  swing  to  this 
thing  till  I  make  something  out  of  it,  if  I  have  to  put 
in  some  more  winters  like  the  one  I  have  just  come 
through — which  was  Sheol,  with  ice  and  snow  in  the 
place  of  the  traditional  fire  and  brimstone.  If  I  have 
one  good  quality — as  I  sometimes  doubt — it's  the  inabil 
ity  to  know  when  I  am  satisfactorily  and  permanently 
licked." 

Stuart  Ford  was  shivering  through  the  second  of  the 
winters  on  the  gray,  needle-winded  day  when  he  stood 
on  the  crusted  drift,  heartening  his  men  who  were 
breaking  the  way  for  further  rammings  of  the  scrap- 
heap  206  and  her  box-plow.  During  the  summer  which 
lay  behind  the  pitiless  storms  and  the  blockading  snows 
he  had  explored  and  planned,  studied  and  schemed; 
and  now  a  month  of  good  weather  would  put  the  finish 
ing  touches  preparatory  upon  the  "notion"  hinted  at  in 
the  letter  to  Frisbie. 

"That'll  do,  boys;  we'll  let  Gallagher  hit  it  a  few 
times  now,"  he  sang  out,  when  he  saw  that  the  weaker 
ones  among  the  shovelers  were  stumbling  numbly  and 
throwing  wild.  "Get  back  to  the  car  and  thaw  your 
selves  out." 

The  safety-valve  of  the  206  was  stuttering  under  a 
gratifying  increase  of  steam  pressure  when  the  super 
intendent  climbed  to  the  canvas-shrouded  cab. 


10  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"Ha!  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds!  That  looks  a 
little  more  like  it,  Michael.  Now  get  all  the  run  you 
can  and  hit  her  straight  from  the  shoulder/'  he  or 
dered,  mounting  to  his  seat  on  the  fireman's  box,  and 
bracing  himself  for  what  should  come. 

Gallagher  released  the  driver-brakes  and  let  the  206 
and  the  plow  drift  down  the  grade  until  his  tender 
drawhead  touched  the  laborers'  car.  Then  the  revers 
ing  lever  went  forward  with  a  clang,  and  the  steam 
squealed  shrilly  in  the  dry-pipe.  For  a  thunderous  sec 
ond  or  two  the  driving-wheels  slipped  and  whirled 
futilely  on  the  snowy  rails.  Gallagher  pounced  upon  the 
sand  lever,  whereat  the  tires  suddenly  bit  and  held  and 
a  long-drawn,  fire-tearing  exhaust  sobbed  from  the 
stack. 

"You've  got  her!"  shouted  Ford.  "Now  hit  it— hit 
it  hard!" 

Swiftly  the  huge  mass  of  engine  and  plow  gathered 
headway,  the  pounding  exhausts  quickening  until  they 
blended  in  a  continuous  roar.  The  little  Irishman 
stayed  himself  with  a  foot  against  the  boiler  brace ;  the 
fireman  ducked  under  the  canvas  curtain  and  clung  to 
the  coal  bulkhead ;  and  Ford  held  on  as  he  could. 

The  shock  came  like  the  crashing  blow  of  a  collision. 
The  box-plow  buckled  and  groaned  with  fine  cracklings 
as  of  hard-strained  timbers,  and  an  avalanche  of  snow 
thrown  up  from  its  inclined  plane  buried  engine  and  cab 


A   MASTER   OF   MEN  11 

and  tender  in  a  smothering  drift.  Ford  slid  his  window 
and  looked  out. 

"Good  work,  Michael ;  good  work !  You  gained  a  full 
car-length  that  time.  Try  it  again." 

Gallagher  backed  the  plow  carefully  out  of  the  cut 
ting,  and  the  fireman  opened  the  blower  and  nursed  his 
fire.  Again  and  again  the  wheeled  projectile  was  hurled 
into  the  obstruction,  and  Ford  watched  the  steadily 
retrograding  finger  of  the  steam-gauge  anxiously.  Would 
the  pressure  suffice  for  the  final  dash  which  should  clear 
the  cutting?  Or  would  they  have  to  stop  and  turn  out 
the  wretched  shovelmen  again? 

The  answer  came  with  the  fourth  drive  into  the 
stubborn  barrier.  There  was  the  same  nerve-racking 
shock  of  impact;  but  now  the  recoil  was  followed  by  a 
second  forward  plunge,  and  Gallagher  yelled  his  tri 
umph  when  the  206  burst  through  the  remaining  lesser 
drifts  and  shot  away  on  the  clear  track  beyond. 

Ford  drew  a  long  breath  of  relief,  and  the  engineer 
checked  the  speed  of  the  runaway,  stopped,  and  started 
back  to  couple  on  the  car-load  of  laborers. 

Ford  swung  around  and  put  his  back  to  the  open 
window. 

"Let's  hope  that  is  the  worst  of  it  and  the  last  of  it 
for  this  winter,  Mike,"  he  said,  speaking  as  man  to  man. 
"I  believe  the  weather  will  break  before  we  have  any 
more  snow ;  and  next  year — " 


12  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

The  pause  was  so  long  that  Gallagher  took  his  chance 
of  filling  it. 

"Don't  be  tellin'  me  the  big  boss  has  promised  us  a 
rotary  for  next  winter,  Misther  Foord.  That'd  be  too 
good  to  be  thrue,  I'm  thinking." 

"No;  but  next  winter  you'll  be  doing  one  of  two 
things,  Michael.  You  will  be  pulling  your  train  through 
steel  snow-sheds  on  Plug  Mountain — or  you'll  be  work 
ing  for  another  boss.  Break  her  loose,  and  let's  get  to 
camp  as  soon  as  we  can.  Those  poor  devils  back  in  the 
box-car  are  about  dead  for  sleep  and  a  square  meal." 


II 


A   SPIKED  SWITCH 

Ford's  hopeful  prophecy  that  the  snow  battles  were 
over  for  the  season  proved  true.  A  few  weeks  later  a 
warm  wind  blew  up  from  the  west,  the  mountain  foot- 
trails  became  first  packed  ice-paths  and  then  slippery 
ridges  to  trap  the  unwary;  the  great  drifts  began  to 
settle  and  melt,  and  the  spring  music  of  the  swollen 
mountain  torrents  was  abroad  in  the  land. 

At  the  blowing  of  the  warm  wind  Ford  aimed  the 
opening  gun  in  his  campaign  against  fate — the  fate 
which  seemed  to  be  bent  upon  adding  his  name  to  the  list 
of  failures  on  the  Plug  Mountain  branch.  The  gun-aim 
ing  was  a  summons  to  Frisbie,  at  the  moment  a  drafts 
man  in  the  engineering  office  of  the  Great  Northern  at 
St.  Paul,  and  pining,  like  the  Plug  Mountain  superin 
tendent,  for  something  bigger. 

"I  have  been  waiting  until  I  could  offer  you  some- 
13 


14  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

thing  with  a  bread-and-meat  attachment  in  the  way  of 
day  pay/5  wrote  Ford,  "and  the  chance  has  come.  Ken 
nedy,  my  track  supervisor,  has  quit,  and  the  place  is 
yours  if  you  will  take  it.  If  you  are  willing  to  tie  up 
to  the  most  harebrained  scheme  you  ever  heard  of,  with 
about  one  chance  in  a  thousand  of  coming  out  on  top 
and  of  growing  up  with  a  brand  new  country  of  unlim 
ited  possibilities,  just  gather  up  your  dunnage  and 
come." 

This  letter  was  written  on  a  Friday.  Frisbie  got  it  out 
of  the  carriers'  delivery  on  the  Sunday  morning;  and 
Sunday  night  saw  him  racing  westward,  with  the  high 
mountains  of  Colorado  as  his  goal.  Not  that  the  desti 
nation  made  any  difference,  for  Frisbie  would  have  gone 
quite  as  willingly  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  at  the  crook 
ing  of  Ford's  finger. 

It  was  the  brightest  of  May  days  when  the  new  su 
pervisor  of  track  debarked  from  the  mountain-climbing 
train  at  Saint's  Rest,  stretched  his  legs  gratefully  on 
terra  firma,  had  his  first  deep  lungful  of  the  ozonic  air 
of  the  high  peaks,  and  found  his  welcome  awaiting  him. 
Ford  would  have  no  talk  of  business  until  he  had  taken 
Frisbie  across  to  the  little  shack  '"hotel,"  and  had  filled 
him  up  on  a  dinner  fresh  from  the  tin;  nor,  indeed, 
afterward,  until  they  were  smoking  comfortably  in  the 
boxed-off  den  in  the  station  building  which  served  as 
the  superintendent's  office. 


A   SPIKED    SWITCH  15 

"I've  been  counting  on  you,  Dick,  as  you  know,  ever 
since  this  thing  threatened  to  take  shape  in  my  head," 
Ford  began.  "First,  let  me  ask  you :  do  you  happen  to 
know  where  you  could  lay  hands  on  three  or  four  good 
constructing  engineers — men  you  could  turn  loose  ab 
solutely  and  trust  implicitly?  I'm  putting  this  up  to 
you  because  the  Plug  Mountain  exile  has  taken  me  a 
bit  out  of  touch." 

"Why — yes,"  said  Frisbie,  taking  time  to  call  the 
mental  roll.  "There  are  Major  Benson  and  his  son 
Jack — you  know  'em  both — just  in  off  their  job  in  the 
Selkirks.  Then  there  is  Eoy  Brissac ;  he'd  be  a  pretty 
good  man  in  the  field;  and  Chauncey  Leckhard,  of  my 
class^ — he's  got  a  job  in  Winnipeg,  but  he'll  come  if  I 
ask  him  to,  and  he  is  the  best  office  man  I  know.  But 
what  on  top  of  earth  are  you  driving  at,  Stuart?" 

Ford  cleared  his  pipe  of  the  ash  and  refilled  it. 

"I'll  go  into  the  details  with  you  a  little  later.  We 
shall  have  plenty  of  time  during  the  next  month  or  six 
weeks,  and,  incidentally,  a  good  bit  more  privacy.  The 
thing  I'm  trying  to  figure  out  will  burst  like  a  bubble 
if  it  gets  itself  made  public  too  soon,  and" — lowering 
his  voice — "I  can't  trust  my  office  force  here.  Savez?" 

"I  savez  nothing  as  yet,"  laughed  the  new  supervisor, 
"but  perhaps  I  shall  if  you'll  tell  me  what  is  going  to 
happen  in  the  next  month  or  six  weeks." 

"I'm  coming  to  that,  right  now.  How  would  you  like 


16  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

to  take  a  hunting  trip  over  on  the  wilderness  side  of 
the  range  ?  There  are  big  woods  and  big  game." 

Frisbie  grinned.  He  was  a  little  man,  with  sharp 
black  eyes  shaded  by  the  heaviest  of  black  brows,  and  it 
was  his  notion  to  trim  his  mustaches  and  beard  after 
the  fashion  set  by  the  third  Napoleon  and  imitated 
faithfully  by  those  who  sing  the  part  of  Mephistopheles 
in  Faust.  Hence,  his  grin  was  handsomely  diabolic. 

"You  needn't  ask  me  what  I'd  like;  you  just  tell  me 
what  you  want  me  to  do,"  he  rejoined,  with  clansman 
loyalty. 

"So  I  will,"  said  Ford,  taking  the  reins  of  authority. 
"We  leave  here  to-morrow  morning  for  a  trip  over  the 
Pass  and  down  the  Pannikin  on  the  other  side,  and  if 
anybody  asks  you  why,  you  can  say  that  we  expect  to 
kill  a  deer  or  two,  and  possibly  a  bear.  Your  part  of  the 
outsetting,  however,  is  to  pack  your  surveying  instru 
ments  on  the  burro  saddles  so  they'll  pass  for  grub- 
boxes,  tent-poles,  and  the  like." 

"Call  it  done,"  said  Frisbie.  "But  why  all  this  stage 
play?  Can't  you  anticipate  that  much  without  endan 
gering  your  bubble?" 

Ford  lowered  his  voice  again. 

"I  gave  you  the  hint.  Penfield,  my  chief  clerk— his 
desk  is  just  on  the  other  side  of  that  partition — is  an 
ex-main-line  man,  shoved  upon  me  when  I  didn't  want 
him.  He  was  General  Manager  North's  stenographer. 


A   SPIKED    SWITCH  17 

For  reasons  which  will  be  apparent  to  you  a  little  later 
on,  I  want  to  blow  my  bubble  in  my  own  way;  or,  to 
change  the  figure,  I'd  like  to  fire  the  first  volley  my 
self/' 

Frisbie's  grin  was  rather  more  than  less  diabolic. 

"Then  I'd  begin  by  firing  Mr.  Penfield,  himself/'  he 
remarked. 

"No,  you  wouldn't,"  said  Ford.  "There  are  going  to 
be  obstacles  enough  in  the  way  without  slapping  Mr. 
North  in  the  face  as  a  preliminary.  Under  the  circum 
stances,  he'd  take  it  that  way ;  Penfield  would  make  sure 
that  he  took  it  that  way." 

It  was  at  this  point  in  the  low-toned  conference  that 
the  ingenious  young  man  in  the  outer  office  put  down 
the  desk  telephone  ear-piece  long  enough  to  smite  with 
his  fist  at  some  air-drawn  antagonist.  Curiosity  was  this 
young  man's  capital  weakness,  and  he  had  tinkered 
the  wires  of  the  private  telephone  system  so  that  the 
flicking  of  a  switch  made  him  an  auditor  at  any  conver 
sation  carried  on  in  the  private  office.  He  was  listening 
intently  and  eagerly  again  when  Ford  said,  still  in  the 
same  guarded  tone: 

"No,  I  can't  fire  Penfield,  and  I  don't  particularly 
want  to.  He  is  a  good  office  man,  and  loyal  to  his  salt : 
it's  my  misfortune  that  it  is  Mr.  North's  salt-cellar,  and 
not  mine,  that  he  dips  into.  Besides,  I'd  have  trouble  in 
replacing  him.  Saint's  Eest  isn't  exactly  the  paradise  its 


18  EMPIEE   BUILDERS 

name  implies — for  a  clean-cut,  well-mannered  young 
fellow  with  social  leanings." 

"Now,  what  in  the  mischief  does  all  that  mean?" 
mused  the  chief  clerk,  when  Ford  and  his  new  track 
man  had  gone  out.  "A  month's  hunting  trip  over  the 
range,  with  the  surveying  instruments  taken  along. 
And  last  summer  Mr.  Ford  spent  a  good  part  of  his 
time  over  there — also  hunting,  so  he  said.  Confound  it 
all !  I  wish  I  could  get  into  that  private  drawer  of  his 
in  the  safe.  That  would  tell  the  story.  I  wonder  if 
Pacheco  couldn't  make  himself  an  errand  over  the 
Pass  in  the  morning  ?  By  George !"  slapping  his  thigh 
and  apostrophizing  the  superintendent,  "I'll  just  go  you 
once,  Mr.  Ford,  if  I  lose !" 

Now  the  fruit,  of  which  this  little  soliloquy  was  the 
opening  blossom,  matured  on  the  second  day  after  Ford 
and  Frisbie  had  started  out  on  the  mysterious  hunting 
trip  across  the  range.  Pacheco,  the  half-breed  Mexican 
who  freighted  provisions  by  jack  train  to  the  mining- 
camps  on  the  head  waters  of  the  Pannikin,  came  in  to 
report  to  the  chief  clerk. 

"Well,  'Checo,  what  did  you  find  out?"  was  the  curt 
inquiry. 

The  half -breed  spread  his  palms. 

"Wat  I  see,  I  know.  Dey'll  not  gone  for  hunt  much. 
One  day  out,  dey'll  make-a  da  camp  and  go  for  squint 
t'rough  spy-glass,  so" — making  an  imaginary  transit 


A   SPIKED    SWITCH  19 

telescope  of  his  hands.  "Den  dey'll  measure  h-on  da 
groun'  and  squint  some  more,  so." 

Penfield  nodded  and  a  gold  piece  changed  hands 
silently. 

"That's  all,  'Checo;  much  obliged.  Don't  say  any 
thing  about  this  over  in  the  camp.  Mr.  Ford  said  he  was 
going  hunting,  and  that's  what  we'll  say,  if  anybody 
asks  us." 

That  night  the  chief  clerk  sent  a  brief  cipher  tele 
gram  to  the  general  manager  at  Denver. 

Ford  and  his  new  track  supervisor,  who  is  really  a  high- 
priced  constructing  engineer,  gone  over  the  range  for  a 
month's  absence.  Gave  it  out  here  that  they  were  going 
after  big  game,  but  they  took  a  transit  and  are  picking  up 
the  line  of  the  old  S.  L.  &  W.  extension  in  the  upper  Pan 
nikin. 

It  was  late  in  the  month  of  June  when  Ford  and 
Frisbie,  tanned,  weathered  and  as  gaunt  as  pioneers, 
returned  to  Saint's  Eest;  and  for  those  who  were  cu 
rious  enough  to  be  interested,  there  were  a  couple  of 
bear-skins  and  one  of  a  mountain  lion  to  make  good 
the  ostensible  object  of  the  absence. 

But  the  most  important  trophies  of  the  excursion 
were  two  engineers'  note-books,  well  filled  with  memo 
randa  ;  and  these  they  did  not  exhibit.  On  the  contrary, 
they  became  a  part  of  the  collection  of  maps,  statistics, 
estimates  and  private  correspondence  which  Chief  Clerk 
Penfield  was  so  anxious  to  examine,  and  which  Ford 


20  EMPIEE   BUILDERS 

kept  under  lock  and  key  when  he  and  Frisbie  were  not 
poring  over  some  portion  of  it  in  the  seclusion  of  the 
private  office. 

None  the  less,  Penfield  kept  his  eyes  and  ears  open, 
and  before  long  he  had  another  detail  to  report  by  cipher 
telegram  to  the  general  manager.  Ford  was  evidently 
preparing  for  another  absence,  and  from  what  the  chief 
clerk  could  overhear,  he  was  led  to  believe  that  the 
pseudo  supervisor  of  track  would  be  left  in  charge  of 
Plug  Mountain  affairs. 

It  was  on  the  day  before  Ford's  departure  for  Denver 
that  a  letter  came  from  General  Manager  North.  Ford 
read  it  with  a  scowl  of  disapproval  and  tossed  it  across 
the  double  desk  to  Frisbie. 

"A  polite  invitation  for  me  to  stay  at  home  and  to 
attend  to  my  business,"  he  commented. 

"Had  you  written  him  that  you  were  going  away?" 
inquired  Frisbie. 

"No;  but  evidently  somebody  else  has." 

Frisbie  read  the  letter  again. 

"  'So  that  all  heads  of  departments  may  be  on  duty 
when  the  president  makes  his  annual  inspection  trip 
over  the  lines/  "  he  quoted.  "Is  Mr.  Colbrith  coming 
out  this  early  in  the  summer  ?" 

"No,  of  course  not.   He  never  comes  before  August." 

"Then  this  is  only  a  trumped-up  excuse  to  make  you 
stay  here?" 


A    SPIKED    SWITCH  21 

"That's  all/'  Ford  replied  laconically. 

Mr.  Kichard  Frisbie  got  up  and  walked  twice  the 
length  of  the  little  room  before  he  said : 

"This  Denver  gentleman  is  going  to  knock  your  little 
scheme  into  a  cocked  hat,  if  he  can,  Stuart." 

"I  am  very  much  afraid  we'll  have  to  reckon  upon 
that.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I've  been  reckoning  upon  it, 
all  along." 

"How  much  of  a  pull  has  he  with  the  New  York 
money-people  ?" 

"I  don't  know  that :  I  wish  I  did.  It  would  simplify 
matters  somewhat." 

Frisbie  took  another  turn  up  and  down  the  room, 
with  his  head  down  and  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 

"Stuart,  I  believe,  if  I  were  in  your  place,  I'd  enlist 
Mr.  North,  if  I  had  to  make  it  an  object  for  him,"  he 
said,  at  length. 

"Certainly,  I  mean  to  go  to  him  first,"  said  Ford. 
"That  is  his  due.  But  I  am  counting  upon  opposition 
rather  than  help.  Wait  a  minute" — he  jerked  the  door 
open  suddenly  and  made  sure  that  the  chief  clerk's  chair 
was  unoccupied.  "The  worst  of  it  is  that  I  don't  trust 
North,"  he  went  on.  "He  is  a  grafter  in  small  ways, 
and  he'd  sell  me  out  in  a  minute  if  he  felt  like  it  and 
could  see  any  chance  of  making  capital  for  himself." 

"Then  don't  go  to  him  with  your  scheme,"  urged 
Frisbie.  "If  you  enlist  him,  you  won't  be  sure  of  him ; 


22  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

and  if  you  don't,  you'll  merely  leave  an  active  opponent 
behind  you  instead  of  a  passive  one." 

"I  guess  you're  right,  Dick;  but  I'll  have  to  be  gov 
erned  by  conditions  as  I  find  them.  Aside  from  North's 
influence  with  Mr.  Colbrith,  which  is  considerable,  I 
believe,  he  can't  do  much  to  help.  But  he  can  do  a  tre 
mendous  lot  to  hinder.  I  think  I  shall  try  to  choke  him 
with  butter,  if  I  can." 

Notwithstanding  the  general  manager's  letter,  Ford 
took  the  train  for  Denver  the  following  morning,  and 
the  chief  clerk  remarked  that  he  checked  a  small 
steamer  trunk  in  addition  to  his  hand  baggage. 

"Going  to  be  gone  some  time,  Mr.  Ford?"  he  asked, 
when  he  brought  the  night  mail  down  for  the  superin 
tendent  to  look  over. 

"Yes,"  said  Ford  absently. 

"You'll  let  me  know  where  to  reach  you  from  time 
to  time,  I  suppose?"  ventured  Penfield. 

Ford  looked  up  quickly. 

"It  won't  be  necessary.  You  can  handle  the  office 
work,  as  you  have  heretofore,  and  Mr.  Frisbie  will  have 
full  charge  out  of  doors." 

Penfield  looked  a  little  crestfallen. 

"Am  I  to  take  orders  from  Mr.  Frisbie?"  he  asked, 
as  one  determined  to  know  the  worst. 

"Just  the  same  as  you  would  from  me,"  said  the 
superintendent,  swinging  up  to  the  step  of  the  moving 


A   SPIKED    SWITCH  23 

car.  And  the  chief  clerk  went  back  to  his  office  busily 
concocting  another  cipher  message  to  the  general  man 
ager. 

On  the  way  down  the  canyon  Ford  was  saying  to  him 
self  that  he  was  now  fairly  committed  to  the  scheme 
over  which  he  had  spent  so  many  toilful  days  and  sleep 
less  nights,  and  that  he  would  have  it  out  with  Mr. 
North  to  a  fighting  conclusion  before  he  slept. 

But  a  freight  wreck  got  in  the  way  while  the  down 
passenger  train  was  measuring  the  final  third  of  the 
distance,  and  it  was  long  after  office  hours  in  the  Pa 
cific  Southwestern  headquarters  when  Ford  reached 
Denver. 

By  consequence,  the  crucial  interview  with  the  gen 
eral  manager  had  to  be  postponed;  and  the  enthusiast 
was  chafing  at  his  ill  luck  when  he  went  to  his  hotel — 
chafing  and  saying  hard  words,  for  the  waiting  had  been 
long,  and  now  that  the  psychologic  moment  had  arrived, 
delays  were  intolerable. 

Now  it  sometimes  happens  that  seeming  misfortunes 
are  only  blessings  in  disguise.  When  Ford  entered  the 
hotel  cafe  to  eat  his  belated  dinner,  he  saw  Evans,  the 
P.  S-W.  auditor,  sitting  alone  at  a  table-for-two.  He 
crossed  the  room  quickly  and  shook  hands  with  the  man 
he  had  meant  to  interview  either  before  or  after  the 
meeting  with  North. 

It  was  after  they  had  chatted  comfortably  through  to 


24  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

the  coffee  that  the  auditor  said,  blandly :  "What  are  you 
down  for,  Ford  ? — anything  special  ?" 

"Yes.  I  am  down  to  get  leave  of  absence  to  go  East," 
said  Ford  warily. 

"But  that  isn't  all/'  was  the  quiet  rejoinder.  "In 
fact,  it's  only  the  non-committal  item  that  you'd  give 
to  a  'Rocky  Mountain  News  reporter." 

Ford  was  impatient  of  diplomatic  methods  when  there 
was  no  occasion  for  them. 

"Give  it  a  name,"  he  said  bluntly.  "What  do  you 
think  you  know,  Evans  ?" 

The  auditor  smiled. 

"There  is  a  leak  in  your  office  up  at  Saint's  Rest, 
I'm  afraid.  What  sort  of  a  bombshell  are  you  fixing 
to  fire  at  Mr.  North?" 

Ford  grew  interested  at  once. 

"Tell  me  what  you  know,  and  perhaps  I  can  piece  it 
out  for  you." 

"I'll  tell  you  what  Mr.  North  knows — which  will 
be  more  to  the  purpose,  perhaps.  For  a  year  or  more 
you  have  been  figuring  on  some  kind  of  a  scheme  to 
pull  the  company's  financial  leg  in  behalf  of  your  good- 
for-nothing  narrow  gauge.  A  month  ago,  for  example, 
you  went  all  over  the  old  survey  on  the  other  side  of  the 
mountains  and  verified  the  original  S.  L.  &  W.  prelimi 
naries  and  rights-of-way  on  its  proposed  extension." 

Ford's  eyes  narrowed.   He  was  thinking  of  the  warn- 


A    SPIKED    SWITCH  25 

ing  letter  he  would  have  to  write  to  Frisbie.  But  what 
he  said  was : 

"I'd  like  to  know  how  the  dickens  you  guessed  all 
that.  But  no  matter ;  supposing  I  did  ?" 

"It's  no  good/'  said  the  auditor,  shaking  his  head. 
"I'm  talking  as  a  friend.  North  doesn't  like  you,  per 
sonally;  and  if  he  did,  you  couldn't  persuade  him  to 
recommend  anything  in  the  way  of  an  experiment  on 
the  Plug  Mountain.  So  far  from  extending  your  two- 
by-four  branch — if  that  is  what  you  have  in  mind — he'd 
be  much  more  likely  to  counsel  its  abandonment,  if  the 
charter  didn't  require  us  to  keep  it  going." 

Ford  found  a  cigar  for  the  auditor,  and  lighted  one 
for  himself. 

"From  all  of  which  I  infer  that  the  semiannual  re 
port  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern  is  going  to  be  a  pretty 
bad  one,"  he  said,  with  carefully  assumed  indifference. 

Evans  regarded  him  shrewdly. 

"Are  you  guessing  at  that  ?  Or  is  there  a  leak  at  our 
end  of  the  line  as  well  as  at  yours  ?" 

"Oh,  it's  a  guess,"  laughed  Ford.  "Call  it  that,  any 
how.  At  least,  I  haven't  any  of  your  confidential  clerks 
in  my  pay.  But  just  how  bad  is  the  report  going  to 
be?" 

The  auditor  shook  his  head. 

"Worse  than  the  last  one.  Perhaps  you  have  noticed 
that  the  stock  has  dropped  six  points  in  the  past  week. 


26  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

You're  one  of  the  official  family:  I  don't  mind  telling 
you  that  we  are  in  the  nine-hole,  Ford." 

"Of  course  we  are,"  said  Ford,  with  calm  conviction. 
"That  much  is  pretty  evident  to  a  man  who  merely 
reads  the  Wall  Street  news  bulletins.  What  is  the  mat 
ter  with  us — specifically,  I  mean?" 

Evans  shrugged. 

"Are  you  a  division  superintendent  on  the  system 
and  don't  know?"  he  demanded.  "We  are  too  short 
at  both  ends.  With  our  eastern  terminal  only  half-way 
to  Chicago,  we  can't  control  the  east-bound  grain  which 
grows  on  our  own  line;  and  with  the  other  end  stop 
ping  short  here  at  Denver,  we  can't  bid  for  west-bound 
transcontinental  business.  It's  as  simple  as  twice  two. 
Our  competitors  catch  us  going  and  coming." 

"Precisely.   And  if  we  don't  get  relief  ?" 

The  auditor  smiled  grimly. 

"As  I've  said,  you're  one  of  us,  Ford,  and  I  don't 
mind  speaking  freely  to  you.  A  receivership  is  looming 
in  the  distance,  and  the  not  very  dim  distance,  for  the 
P.  S-W." 

"I  thought  so.  How  near  is  it  ?" 

"I  don't  know — nobody  knows  definitely.  If  we  had 
a  man  of  resources  at  the  head  of  things — as  we  have 
not — it  might  be  stood  off  for  another  six  months." 

"I'm  on  the  way  to  stand  it  off  permanently,  if  I  can 
get  any  backing,"  said  Ford  quietly. 


A    SPIKED    SWITCH  27 

"You  \"  was  the  astonished  reply. 

"Yes,  I.  Listen,  Evans.  For  two  years  I  have  been 
buried  up  yonder  in  the  hills,  with  not  enough  to  do 
in  the  summer  season  to  keep  me  out  of  mischief.  I 
am  rather  fond  of  mathematics,  and  I  am  telling  you 
I  have  this  thing  figured  out  to  the  fourth  decimal.  If 
President  Colbrith  and  his  associates  can  be  made  to 
see  that  the  multiplication  of  two  by  two  gives  an  in 
variable  resultant  of  four,  there  will  be  no  receivership 
for  the  P.  S-W.  this  year,  or  next." 

"Show  me,"  said  the  auditor. 

Ford  hesitated  for  a  moment.  Then  he  took  a  packet 
of  papers,  estimates,  exhibits  and  fine-lined  engineer's 
maps  from  his  pocket  and  tossed  it  across  the  table. 

"That  is  for  you,  personally — for  David  Evans;  not 
the  P.  S-W.  auditor.  You've  got  to  keep  it  to  your 
self." 

The  auditor  went  through  the  papers  carefully,  shift 
ing  his  cigar  slowly  from  one  corner  of  his  mouth  to 
the  other  as  he  read  and  examined.  When  he  handed 
them  back  he  was  shaking  his  head,  almost  mourn 
fully. 

"It's  a  big  thing,  Ford;  the  biggest  kind  of  a  thing. 
And  it  is  beautifully  worked  out.  But  I  know  our  peo 
ple,  here  and  in  New  York.  They  will  simply  give  you 
the  cold  stare  and  say  that  you  are  crazy." 

"Because  it  can't  be  financed  ?" 


2S  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

"Because  it  doesn't  come  from  Hill  or  Harriman  or 
Morgan,  or  some  other  one  of  the  big  captains.  You'll 
never  be  able  to  stand  it  upon  its  feet  by  your  single- 
handed  lonesome." 

Ford  set  his  teeth,  and  his  clean-cut  face  seemed  to 
grow  suddenly  older  and  harder  as  the  man  in  him 
came  to  the  fore. 

"By  heavens!  if  I  put  my  back  under  it,  it's  got  to 
stand  upon  its  feet !  I'm  not  going  into  it  with  the  idea 
that  there  is  any  such  thing  in  the  book  as  failure." 

The  auditor  looked  darkly  into  the  cool  gray  eyes  of 
the  man  facing  him. 

"Then  let  me  give  you  a  word  of  advice  before  you 
start  in.  Skip  North,  absolutely;  don't  breathe  a  word 
of  it  to  him.  Don't  ask  me  why;  but  do  as  I  say.  And 
another  thing:  drop  into  my  office  to-morrow  before  you 
leave.  I'll  show  you  some  figures  that  may  help  you  to 
stir  things  up  properly  at  the  New  York  end.  Do  you 
go  direct  from  here  ?" 

"No ;  I  shall  have  to  stop  over  a  few  days  in  Chicago. 
I  know  pretty  well  where  to  put  my  hands  on  what  I 
need;  I  have  laid  the  foundations  from  the  bottom  up 
by  correspondence.  But  I  want  to  go  over  the  situation 
on  the  ground  before  I  make  my  grand-stand  play  before 
Mr.  Colbrith  and  the  board  of  directors." 

"Well,  come  in  and  get  the  figures,  anyway :  come  to 
the  private  door  of  my  office  and  rap  three  times.  It 


A   SPIKED    SWITCH  29 

will  be  just  as  well  if  it  isn't  generally  known  that  you 
are  confabbing  with  me.  Our  semiannual  report  will 
probably  be  in  New  York  ahead  of  you,  but  it  won't  hurt 
if  you  have  the  information  to  work  with."  Evans  was 
pushing  his  chair  from  the  table  when  he  added:  "By 
the  way,  you  happened  upon  the  exact  psychological 
moment  to  make  your  raid ;  the  report  coming  out,  and 
things  going  to  the  dogs  generally." 

Ford's  laugh  was  genially  shrewd. 

"Perhaps  it  wasn't  so  much  of  a  happening  as  it  ap 
pears.  Didn't  I  tell  you  that  I  had  figured  this  thing  out 
to  the  fourth  decimal  place  ?  Psychological  moments  are 
bigger  arguments  than  dollars  and  cents,  sometimes." 

The  auditor  had  taken  his  hat  from  the  waiter  and 
was  shaking  hands  with  his  dinner  companion. 

"I'd  like  to  believe  you're  a  winner,  Ford;  you  de 
serve  to  be.  Come  and  see  me — and  make  your  call  upon 
Mr.  North  as  brief  as  possible.  He'll  probe  you  if  you 
don't," 

This  was  how  it  came  about  that  the  next  morning, 
when  Ford  went  to  call  upon  the  sallow,  heavy-faced, 
big-bodied  man  who  sat  behind  the  glass  door  lettered 
"General  Manager,  Private," — this  after  half  an  hour 
spent  in  Auditor  Evans'  private  office, — it  was  only  to 
ask  for  leave  of  absence  to  go  East — on  business  of  a 
personal  nature,  he  explained,  when  Mr.  North  was 
curious  enough  to  ask  his  object. 


Ill 


LOSS   A>T>  DAMAGE 

At  this  period  of  his  existence,  Stuart  Ford  troubled 
himself  as  little  as  any  anchorite  of  the  desert  about  the 
eternal  feminine. 

It  was  not  that  he  was  more  or  less  than  a  man,  or  in 
any  sense  that  anomalous  and  impossible  thing  called  a 
woman-hater.  On  the  contrary,  his  attitude  toward 
women  in  the  mass  was  distinctly  and  at  times  boyishly 
sentimental.  But  when  a  young  man  is  honestly  in  loye 
with  his  calling,  and  is  fully  convinced  of  its  impor 
tance  to  himself  and  to  a  restlessly  progressive  world, 
single-heartedness  becomes  his  watchword,  and  what  sen 
timent  there  is  in  him  will  be  apt  to  lie  comfortably 
dormant. 

For  six  full  working-days  Ford  had  been  immersed 
to  the  eyes  in  the  intricacies  of  his  railway  problem. 

30 


LOSS    AND    DAMAGE  31 

acquiring  in  Chicago  a  valiseful  of  documentary  data 
that  demanded  to  be  classified  and  thoroughly  digested 
before  he  reached  New  York  and  the  battle-field  actual. 
This  was  why  he  was  able  to  ride  all  day  in  studious 
abstraction  in  his  section  of  the  Chicago-New  York 
Pullman,  without  so  much  as  a  glance  for  the  young 
woman  in  the  modest  gray  traveling  coat  directly  across 

the  aisle. 

She  was  well  worth  the  glance,  as  he  admitted  will 
ingly  enough  afterward.  She  was  the  dainty  type,  with 
fluffy  bright  brown  hair,  eyes  the  color  of  wood  violets, 
a  nose  tilted  to  the  precise  angle  of  bewitching  piquancy, 
and  the  adorable  mouth  and  chin  familiarized  to  two 
continents  by  the  artistic  pen  of  the  Apostle  of  the 
American  Girl.  How  he  could  have  ridden  within  arm's 
reach  of  her  through  all  the  daylight  hours  of  a  long 
summer  day  remained  as  one  of  Ford's  unanswered 
enigmas;  but  it  required  an  accident  and  a  most  em 
barrassing  contretemps  to  make  him  aware  of  her  ex 
istence. 

The  accident  was  one  of  the  absurd  sort.  The  call  for 
dinner  in  the  dining-car  had  been  given,  and  Ford  was 
just  behind  the  young  woman  in  the  rear  of  the  proces 
sion  which  filed  forward  out  of  the  Pullman.  The  train 
had  at  that  moment  left  a  way  station,  and  the  right- 
hand  vestibule  door  was  still  open  and  swinging  dis- 
jointedly  across  the  narrow  passage.  Ford  reached  an 


33  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

arm  past  the  young  woman  to  fold  the  two-leaved  door 
out  of  her  way.  As  he  did  it,  the  door-knob  hooked  itself 
mischievously  in  the  loop  of  her  belt  chatelaine,  snatched 
it  loose,  and  flung  it  out  into  the  backward-rushing 
night. 

Whereupon :  "Oh ! — my  purse  I"  with  a  little  gasp  of 
sudden  bereavement,  and  a  quick  turning  to  face  the 
would-be  helper. 

Ford  was  honestly  aghast  when  the  situation  fully 
enveloped  him. 

"Heavens  and  earth!  Did  you  ever  see  such  idiotic 
clumsiness!"  he  ejaculated.  And  then,  in  deepest  con 
trition:  "I  won't  attempt  to  apologize — it's  beyond  all 
that.  But  you  must  let  me  make  your  loss  good." 

In  all  the  pin-pricking  embarrassment  of  the  moment, 
he  did  not  fail  to  remark  that  she  quickly  recovered  the 
serenity  which  belongs  to  the  well-bred.  She  was  even 
smiling,  rather  ruefully,  when  she  said : 

"Fortunately,  the  conductor  has  my  passes.  But 
really" — and  now  she  laughed  outright — "I  am  afraid  I 
shall  have  to  go  hungry  if  I  can't  borrow  enough  to  pay 
for  my  dinner." 

Another  man,  a  man  less  purposefully  lost  in  the 
purely  practical  labyrinth  of  professional  work,  would 
have  found  something  fitting  to  say.  But  Ford,  having 
discovered  a  thing  to  do,  did  it  painstakingly  and  in 
solemn  silence.  There  was  an  unoccupied  table  for  two 


LOSS    AND    DAMAGE  33 

in  the  dining-car;  he  seated  her,  gave  her  his  purse, 
called  a  waiter,  and  would  have  betaken  himself  forth 
with  to  another  table  if  she  had  not  detained  him. 

"No,"  she  said  decisively,  with  a  charming  little  up- 
tilt  of  the  adorable  chin.  "I  do  not  forget  that  you  were 
trying  to  do  me  a  kindness.  Please  sit  down  here  and 
take  your  purse.  I'm  sure  I  don't  want  it." 

He  obeyed,  still  in  somber  silence,  gave  his  dinner 
order  after  she  had  given  hers,  and  was  wondering  if  he 
might  venture  to  bury  himself  in  a  bundle  of  the  data 
papers,  when  she  spoke  again. 

"Are  you  provoked  with  yourself,  or  with  me?"  she- 
asked — rather  mockingly,  he  thought. 

"Neither;"  he  said  promptly.  "I  was  merely  saying 
to  myself  that  my  wretched  awkwardness  didn't  give  me 
an  excuse  for  boring  you." 

"It  was  an  accident — nothing  more  or  less,"  she  re 
joined,  with  an  air  of  dismissing  finally  the  purse- 
snatching  episode.  Then  she  added :  "I  am  the  one  who 
ought  to  be  embarrassed." 

"But  you  are  not,"  he  returned  quickly.  "You  are 
quite  the  mistress  of  yourself — which  is  more  than  most 
women  would  be,  under  the  circumstances." 

"Is  that  a  compliment  ?"  she  asked,  with  latent  mock 
ery  in  the  violet  eyes.  "Because  if  it  is,  I  think  you 
must  be  out  of  the  West;  the — the  unfettered  West: 
isn't  that  what  it  is  called  ?" 


34  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

"I  am,"  Eord  acknowledged.  "But  why  do  you  say 
that?  Was  I  rude?  I  beg  you  to  believe  that  I  didn't 
mean  to  be." 

"Oh,  no;  not  rude — merely  sincere.  We  are  not  sin 
cere  any  more,,  I  think;  except  on  the  frontier  edges  of 
us.  Are  we  ?" 

Ford  took  exceptions  to  the  charge  for  the  sheer  pleas 
ure  of  hearing  her  talk. 

"Fd  be  sorry  to  believe  that/'  he  protested.  "The  con 
ventions  account  fo:1  something,  of  course;  and  I  sup 
pose  the  polite  lie  which  deceives  no  one  has  to  have 
standing-room.  !3u;,  every  now  and  then  one  is  sur 
prised  into  telling  the  truth,  don't  you  think  ?" 

"If  I  can't  fully  agree  with  you,  I  can  at  least  admire 
your  point  of  view,"  she  said  amiably.  "Is  it  Western — 
or  merely  human  ?" 

He  laughed. 

"Shall  we  assume  that  the  one  implies  the  other? 
That  would  be  in  accordance  with  your  point  of  view, 
wouldn't  it?" 

"Yes;  but  it  would  be  a  distinct  reversal  of  yours. 
Truth  belongs  to  another  and  simpler  time  than  ours. 
We  are  conventional  first  and  everything  else  after 
ward." 

"Are  we  ?"  he  queried.  "Some  few  hundreds  or  thou 
sands  of  us  may  be ;  but  for  the  remainder  of  our  eighty- 
odd  millions  the  conventions  are  things  to  be  put  on 


LOSS   AND    DAMAGE  35 

and  off  like  Sunday  garments.  And  even  the  chosen  few 
of  us  brush  them  aside  upon  occasion;  ignore  them 
utterly,  as  we  two  are  ignoring  them  at  this  moment." 

She  proved  his  assertion  by  continuing  to  talk  to  him, 
and  the  dining-car  was  emptying  itself  when  they  real 
ized  that  there  is  an  end  even  to  a  most  leisurely  dinner. 
Ford  paid  the  steward  as  they  left  the  car,  but  in  the 
Pullman  he  went  back  to  first  principles  and  insisted 
upon  some  kind  of  a  definite  accounting  for  the  lost 
purse. 

"Now  you  will  tell  me  how  much  I  threw  away  for 
you,  and  I'll  pay  my  debt,"  he  said,  when  she  had  hos 
pitably  made  room  for  him  in  the  opposing  seat  of  her 
section. 

"Indeed,  you  will  do  nothing  of  the  kind!"  she  as 
serted.  "You  will  give  me  your  card — we're  going  back 
to  the  conventions  now — and  when  we  reach  the  city 
you  may  lend  me  enough  money  to  take  me  up-town. 
And  to-morrow  morning  my  brother  will  pay  you  back." 

He  gave  in  because  he  had  to. 

"You  are  much  more  lenient  than  I  deserve.  Keally, 
you  ought  to  stick  me  good  and  hard  for  my  awkward 
ness.  It  would  serve  me  right." 

"I  am  considering  the  motive,"  she  said  almost  wist 
fully,  he  fancied.  "We  have  drifted  very  far  from  all 
those  quiet  anchorages  of  courtesy  and  helpfulness.  If 
we  lived  simpler  lives — " 


36  EMPIKE    BUILDERS 

He  smiled  at  the  turn  she  was  giving  it. 

"Are  you,,  too,,  bitten  with  the  fad  of  the  moment,  'the 
simple  life'?"  he  asked.  "Let  me  assure  you  that  it  is 
beautiful  only  when  you  can  look  down  upon  it  from  the 
safe  altitude  of  a  comfortable  income.  I  know,,  because 
I've  been  living  it  for  the  past  two  years." 

She  looked  as  if  she  were  sorry  for  him. 

"That  is  rank  heresy !"  she  declared.  "Our  forefathers 
had  the  better  of  us  in  many  ways,  and  their  simpler 
manner  of  living  was  one  of  them.  They  had  time  for 
all  the  little  courtesies  and  kindnesses  that  make  life 
truly  worth  living." 

Ford's  laugh  was  boyishly  derisive. 

"Yes;  they  certainly  had  plenty  of  time;  but  they 
didn't  have  much  else.   Why,  just  think,  for  a  moment, 
of  what  our  own  America  would  be  if  merely  one  of  the  I 
modern  civilizers,  the  railroads,  had  never  existed.  There  / 
simply  wouldn't  be  any  America,  as  we  know  it  now.", 

"How  can  you  say  that  ?" 

"Because  it  is  so.  For  nearly  two  centuries  we  stood 
still,  because  there  were  no  means  of  locomotion—which 
is  another  word  for  progress  and  civilization.'  But  in 
less  than  fifty  years  after  the  first  railroad  was  built  we 
had  become  a  great  nation." 

She  was  silenced,  if  not  wholly  convinced ;  and  a  few 
minutes  later  the  train  drew  into  the  Forty-second 
Street  Station.  When  the  parting  time  came,  Ford 


LOSS    AND    DAMAGE  37 

dutifully  gathered  her  belongings,  said  good-by,  and  put 
her  on  a  north-bound  subway;  all  this  without  remem 
bering  that  he  did  not  know  her  name.  The  recollection 
came,  however,  when  the  subway  train  shot  away  into 
the  tunnel. 

"Of  all  the  blockheads  I"  he  growled,  apostrophizing 
his  own  unreadiness.  "But  I'll  find  her  again.  She  said 
she'd  send  her  brother  to  the  hotel  with  the  dinner 
money,  and  when  I  get  hold  of  him  it  will  go  hard  with 
me  if  I  don't  manage  some  way  to  get  an  introduction." 

This  was  what  was  in  his  mind  when  he  sought  the 
down-town  hotel  whose  name  he  had  written  on  his  card 
for  her;  it  was  his  latest  waking  thought  when  he  went 
to  sleep  that  night,  and  his  earliest  when  he  awoke  the 
following  morning. 

But  when  he  went  to  the  clerk's  desk,  after  a  lei 
surely  breakfast,  to  get  his  mail,  he  found  that  the  sure 
thread  of  identification  had  broken  in  his  fingers.  There 
was  a  square  envelope  among  the  other  letters  in  his 
key-box  containing  the  exact  amount  of  the  young  wom 
an's  indebtedness  to  him;  this,  with  a  brief  note  of 
thanks — unsigned. 


IY 


COLD  STORAGE 


If  courage,  of  the  kind  fitted  to  lead  forlorn  hopes,  or 
marchings  undaunted  up  to  the  muzzles  of  loaded  can 
non,  be  a  matter  of  gifts  and  temperament,  it  is  also  in 
some  degree  a  matter  of  environment. 

Stuart  Ford  was  Western  born  and  bred;  a  product 
of  the  wider  breathing  spaces.  Given  his  proper  battle 
field,  where  the  obstacles  were  elemental  and  the  foes 
to  be  overcome  were  mere  men  of  flesh  and  blood  fight 
ing  freely  in  the  open,  he  was  a  match  for  the  lustiest. 
But  New  York,  with  its  submerging,  jostling  multitudes, 
its  thickly  crowding  human  vastness,  and,  more  than 
all,  its  atmosphere  of  dollar-chasing,  apparent  and  op 
pressive  even  to  the  transient  passer-by,  disheartened 
him  curiously. 

It  was  not  that  he  was  more  provincial  than  he  had 
to  be;  for  that  matter,  there  is  no  provincialism  so 

38 


COLD    STORAGE  39 

rampant  as  that  of  the  thronging,  striving,  self-sufficient 
city.  But  isolation  in  any  sort  is  a  thing  to  be  reckoned 
with.  The  two  pioneering  years  in  the  Rockies  had  done 
their  work, — of  narrowing,  as  well  as  of  broadening, — 
and  the  plunge  into  the  chilling  sea  of  the  money-mad 
metropolis  made  him  shiver  and  wish  he  were  out. 

This  feeling  was  really  at  the  bottom  of  the  late  rising 
and  the  leisurely  breakfast,  making  him  temporize  where 
he  had  meant  to  be  prompt,  energetic  and  vigorously 
aggressive.  Having  pocketed  the  young  woman's  un 
signed  note,  he  glanced  at  his  watch  and  decided  that  it 
was  still  too  early  to  go  in  search  of  President  Colbrith. 

"I  don't  suppose  he'll  be  in  his  office  for  an  hour  yet," 
he  mused  reflectively;  "and  anyway,  I  guess  I'd  better 
go  over  the  papers  again,  so  I  can  be  sure  to  speak  my 
piece  right  end  to.  By  Jove !  I  didn't  suppose  a  couple 
of  thousand  miles  of  easting  would  take  the  heart  out 
of  things  the  way  it  does.  If  I  didn't  know  better,  I 
should  think  I'd  come  here  to  float  the  biggest  kind  of  a 
fake,  instead  of  a  life-boat  for  the  shipwrecked  people 
in  the  Pacific  Southwestern.  It  is  beginning  to  look  that 
way  in  spite  of  all  I  can  do." 

Going  once  again  over  his  carefully  tabulated  argu 
ment  did  not  help  matters  greatly.  He  was  beginning  to 
realize  now  how  vastly,  antipodally  different  the  New 
York  point  of  view  might  be  from  his  own.  It  came  to 
him  with  the  benumbing  effect  of  a  blow  that  his  own 


40  EMPIEE   BUILDERS 

ambitions  had  persistently  looked  beyond  the  mere 
money-making  results  of  his  scheme.  Also,  that  Presi 
dent  Colbrith  and  his  fellow-investors  might  very  easily 
refuse  to  consider  any  other  phase  of  the  revolutionary 
proposition  he  was  about  to  lay  before  them. 

By  ten  o'clock  postponement  was  no  longer  a  tenable 
city  of  refuge :  the  plunge  had  to  be  taken.  Accordingly, 
he  fared  forth  to  present  himself  at  the  Broadway  ad 
dress  given  in  the  Pacific  Southwestern  printed  matter 
as  the  New  York  headquarters  of  the  company. 

The  number  proved  to  be  a  ground  floor,  with  the 
business  office  of  the  eastern  traffic  representative  in 
front,  and  three  or  four  private  desk-rooms  in  the  rear, 
one  of  them  labeled  "President"  in  inconspicuous  gilt 
lettering.  Entering,  with  less  assurance  than  if  he  had 
been  the  humblest  of  place-seekers  out  of  a  job,  Ford 
was  almost  relieved  to  find  only  a  closed  desk,  and  a 
young  man  absently  scanning  a  morning  paper. 

Inquiry  developed  a  few  facts,  tersely  stated  but  none 
the  less  enlightening.  Mr.  Colbrith  was  not  in:  the 
office  was  merely  his  nominal  headquarters  in  the  city 
and  he  occupied  it  only  occasionally.  His  residence  ?  It 
was  in  the  Borough  of  the  Bronx,  pretty  well  up  toward 
Yonkers — locality  and  means  of  access  obligingly  written 
out  on  a  card  for  the  caller  by  the  clerk.  Was  Mr.  Ford's 
business  of  a  routine  nature?  If  so,  perhaps,  Mr.  Ten 
Eyck,  the  general  agent,  could  attend  to  it.  Ford  said  it 


COLD    STORAGE  41 

was  not  of  a  routine  nature,  and  made  his  escape  to  in 
quire  his  way  to  the  nearest  subway  station.  To  pause 
now  was  to  lose  the  precious  impetus  of  the  start. 

It  was  worth  something  to  be  whirled  away  blindly 
out  of  the  stifling  human  vortex  of  the  lower  city;  but 
Ford's  first  glimpse  of  the  Colbrith  mansion  depressed 
him  again.  The  huge,  formal  house  had  once  been  the 
country  residence  of  a  retired  dry-goods  merchant.  It 
fronted  the  river  brazenly,  and  the  fine  old  trees  of  a 
ten-acre  park  shamed  its  architectural  stiffness.  Ford 
knew  the  president  a  little  by  family  repute  and  more 
particularly  as  a  young  subordinate  knows  the  general 
in  command.  It  struck  him  forcibly  that  the  aspect  of 
the  house  fitted  the  man.  With  the  broad  river  and  the 
distant  Palisades  to  be  dwelt  upon,  its  outlook  windows 
were  narrow.  With  the  sloping  park  and  the  great  trees 
to  give  it  dignity,  it  seemed  to  assume  an  artificial, 
plumb-line  dignity  of  its  own,  impressive  only  as  the 
product  of  rigid  mqasurements  and  mechanical  upright 
ness. 

From  the  boulevard  there  was  a  gravelled  driveway 
with  a  stone  portal.  The  iron  gates  were  thrown  wide, 
and  at  his  entrance  Ford  stood  aside  to  let  an  outgoing 
auto-car  have  the  right  of  way.  Being  full  of  his  errand, 
and  of  the  abstraction  of  a  depressed  soul,  Ford  merely 
remarked  that  there  were  two  persons  in  the  car ;  a  young 
man  driving,  and  a  young  woman,  veiled  and  dust- 


43  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

coated,  in  the  mechanician's  seat  beside  him.  None  the 
less,  there  floated  out  of  the  mist  of  abstraction  an  in 
stantly  vanishing  phantom  of  half -recognition  for  the 
Westerner.  Something  in  the  pose  of  the  young  woman, 
the  way  she  leaned  forward  and  held  her  hat  with  the 
tips  of  her  gloved  fingers,  was,  for  the  fleeting  moment, 
almost  reminiscent. 

If  Ford  had  wished  to  speculate  upon  abstruse  prob 
lems  of  identity,  there  was  neither  time  nor  the  mental 
aptitude.  A  little  later  he  had  given  his  card  to  the 
servant  at  the  door  and  was  waiting  in  a  darkened  and 
most  depressive  library  for  the  coming  of  the  master  of 
the  house.  The  five  minutes  of  waiting  nearly  finished 
him.  As  the  absurdly  formal  clock  between  the  book 
cases  ticked  off  the  leaden-winged  seconds,  his  plan  for 
the  rescue  of  Pacific  Southwestern  took  the  form  of  a 
crass  impertinence,  and  only  the  grim  determination  to 
see  a  lost  cause  decently  coffined  and  buried  kept  the 
enthusiast  with  his  face  to  the  front. 

After  all,  the  beginning  of  the  interview  with  the  tall, 
thin,  gray-haired  and  hatchet-faced  old  man,  who  pres 
ently  stalked  into  the  library  and  gave  his  hand  with 
carefully  adjusted  cordiality  to  the  son  of  one  of  his 
college  classmates,  was  only  a  little  more  depressing :  it 
was  not  mortal.  Ford  had  been  born  in  Illinois ;  and  so, 
something  better  than  a  third  of  a  century  earlier,  had 
the  president.  Moreover,  Mr.  Colbrith  had,  in  the  hey- 


COLD    STORAGE  43 


day  of  his  youth,  shared  rooms  with  the  elder  Ford  in 
the  fresh-water  university  which  had  later'  numbered 
the  younger  Ford  among  its  alumni.  These  things  count 
for  somewhat,  even  when  the  gap  to  be  bridged  is  that 
between  the  president  of  a  railroad  and  one  of  his  minor 
officials. 

But  when  the  revolutionary  project  was  introduced, 
the  president's  guarded  cordiality  faded  like  a  photo 
graphic  proof-print  in  the  sunlight,  and  the  air  of  the 
darkened  library  grew  coldly  inclement. 

"So  you  came  to  talk  business,  did  you?"  said  the 
high,  rasping  voice  out  of  the  depths  of  the  easy-chair 
opposite;  and  Ford  raged  inwardly  at  the  thought  that 
he  had  clearly  placed  himself  at  a  disadvantage  by  be 
coming  even  constructively  the  guest  of  the  president. 
"As  a  rule,  I  positively  refuse  to  discuss  such  matters 
outside  of  their  proper  environment;  but  Til  make  an 
exception  for  Douglas  Ford's  son.  Your  plan  is  simply 
impossible.  I  can  understand  how  it  may  appear  pos 
sible,  and  even  attractive,  to  a  young  man,  and  especially 
to  the  young  man  who  has  invented  it.  But  as  an  invest 
ment  for  capital — my  dear  young  sir,  go  back  to  your 
division,  and  strive  by  faithful  service  to  rise  in  the  ac 
cepted  and  time-honored  way.  You  are  wasting  your 
time  in  New  York." 

Curiously  enough,  Ford  found  his  evaporated  courage 
recrystallizing  under  opposition. 


44  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"I  can  not  believe  that  I  have  made  the  plan,  and  the 
present  condition  of  the  system,  sufficiently  clear  to 
you,"  he  insisted;  whereupon  he  went  patiently  and 
good-naturedly  over  the  argument  again,  emphasizing 
the  desperate  straits  to  which  the  Pacific  Southwestern 
was  reduced. 

"We  know  all  that,  Mr.  Ford,"  was  the  unyielding 
reply.  "But  granting  it  to  be  the  fact,  don't  you  see  the 
absolute  futility  of  asking  for  thirty-five  millions  addi 
tional  capital  at  such  a  crisis  ?" 

"No,  I  don't/'  said  Ford  stubbornly.  "I  know— as  I 
can  not  explain  to  you  in  detail  in  a  half -hour  interview 
— that  this  plan  of  mine  can  be  made  successful.  For 
two  years,  Mr.  Colbrith,  I  have  been  the  man  on  the 
ground :  no  word  that  I  am  saying  to  you  is  speculative. 
Every  clause  of  the  proposition  has  a  carefully  estab 
lished  fact  behind  it." 

"No  doubt  it  seems  so  to  you,"  came  the  rasping  voice 
from  the  chair-depths.  "But  thirty-five  millions!" — 
with  a  quavering  gasp.  "And  at  a  time  when  our  earn 
ings  are  falling  off  steadily  and  the  stock  is  going  down 
day  by  day.  It's — it's  simply  preposterous !  I  must  really 
decline  to  discuss  it  any  further." 

Ford  had  his  packet  of  data  in  hand. 

"I  have  all  the  exhibits  here,  carefully  tabulated  and 
condensed.  Won't  you  reconsider  far  enough  to  examine 
them,  Mr.  Colbrith  ?" 


COLD    STOEAGE  45 

A  thin  white  hand  of  negation  and  protest  waved  out 
of  the  depths  of  the  engulfing  easy-chair. 

"I  am  sorry  to  disappoint  you,  Mr.  Ford.  I  knew 
your  father,  and  we  were  great  friends.  You  are  like 
him,"  he  added  reminiscently.  "He  might  have  died 
rich  if  he  had  gone  into  corn-buying  with  me  when  we 
were  graduated,  as  I  wanted  him  to.  But  he  was  too 
enthusiastic.  He  wanted  to  turn  the  world  upside  down 
— just  as  you  do,  my  dear  young  man ;  just  as  you  do." 

Ford  got  upon  his  feet.  The  time  had  arrived  for  the 
firing  of  the  shot  of  last  resort,  and  he  aimed  it  delib 
erately. 

"I  came  first  to  you,  Mr.  Colbrith,  because  it  was  my 
duty  as  a  subordinate,  and  your  own  appointee,  and  be 
cause  you  were  my  father's  friend  so  many  years  ago. 
I  may  say,  frankly,  that  I  did  it  against  good  advice. 
Men  who  profess  to  know  you  have  counseled  me  to 
appeal  directly  to  the  board.  What  I  wish  to  know  now 
is  if  you  are  willing  to  take  the  entire  responsibility  of 
turning  this  plan  of  mine  down.  Will  it  not  relieve  you 
of  all  responsibility  if  you  will  call  a  meeting  of  the 
directors,  and  let  me  lay  this  absurd  proposal  of  mine 
before  it  ?  You  can  surely  have  no  fears  for  the  result." 

The  shot  told.  The  president  struggled  to  his  feet 
and  took  a  nervous  turn  up  and  down  the  long  room. 
When  he  replied,  it  was  with  the  indecisive  man's  reluc 
tance  to  commitment  of  any  sort. 


'46  EMPIEE    BUILDEBS 

"If  I  call  the  meeting,  I  shall  be  ridiculed;  and  if  I 
don't  call  it,  I  suppose  you'll  go  to  Brewster  and  Magnus 
and  tell  them  I've  muzzled  you.  Have  it  your  own  way. 
I'll  issue  the  call  for  ten  o'clock,,  the  day  after  to-mor 
row,  in  McVeigh  and  Mackie's  offices  in  Broad  Street. 
But  I  warn  you  in  advance,  Mr.  Ford,  I  shall  not  be  able 
to  help  you  in  the  least.  And  I  may  add  this :  that  when 
you  reach  that  part  of  your  proposal  where  you  call  for 
thirty-five  millions  additional  capital,  you  may  as  well 
put  on  your  hat  and  go  home.  That  will  be  the  end 
of  it." 

"And  of  me,"  laughed  the  enthusiast.  But  in  spite  of 
the  cold  comfort,  and  of  the  still  colder  promise  of  op 
position,  he  took  his  leave  with  a  lighter  heart,  refusing 
Mr.  Colbrith's  rather  perfunctory  invitation  to  stay  to 
luncheon. 

And  on  the  gravelled  drive,  where  he  again  had  to 
make  way  for  the  auto-car  purring  in  on  its  return,  he 
did  not  so  much  as  look  up  at  the  pair  in  the  driving- 
seat. 


WANTED:  THIRTY-FIVE  MILLIONS 

The  offices  of  McVeigh  and  Mackie,  brokers  and  finan 
cial  agents,  are  in  Broad  Street,  and  the  windows  of  the 
room  used  for  board  meetings  look  down  upon  the  angle 
where  beats  the  money  pulse  of  the  nation. 

Ford  had  successfully  resisted  the  temptation  to  lobby 
for  his  scheme  during  the  one-day  interval  between  his 
conference  with  Mr.  Colbrith  and  the  date  of  the  called 
meeting  of  the  directors.  It  was  not  any  mistaken  sense 
of  loyalty  to  the  president  that  restrained  him;  on  the 
contrary,  he  decided  that  Mr.  Colbrith's  declaration  of 
war  left  him  free  to  fight  as  he  would.  But  upon  due 
consideration  he  concluded  to  set  the  advantage  of  an 
assault  en  masse  over  against  the  dubious  gain  of  an 
advanced  skirmish  line,  and  when  he  turned  out  of 
Broadway  into  Wall  S'treet  on  the  morning  of  destiny 
the  men  whom  he  was  to  meet  and  convince  were  still  no 

47 


48  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

more  to  him  than  a  list  of  names  in  the  Poor's  Manual, 
consulted  within  the  hour  for  the  purpose. 

He  was  early  on  the  battle-ground ;  much  too  early,  he 
thought,  when  a  clerk  ushered  him  into  the  board  room 
in  the  rear  of  the  brokers'  offices.  As  yet  there  was  only 
one  person  present — a  young  man  who  was  lounging  in 
the  easiest  of  the  leather-covered  chairs  and  yawning 
dismally.  At  the  first  glance  the  face  seemed  oddly 
and  strikingly  familiar;  but  when  the  young  man 
marked  the  new-comer's  entrance,  the  small  hand-bag  in 
which  the  amateur  promoter  carried  his  papers,  and  got 
up  to  shake  hands,  Ford  found  the  suggestive  gropings 
baffled. 

"My  name  is  Adair,"  said  the  lounger  genially; 
"and  I  suppose  you  are  the  Mr.  Ford  Uncle  Sidney  has 
been  telling  us  about.  Pull  up  a  chair  and  sit  by  the 
window.  It's  the  only  amusement  you'll  have  until  the 
clan  gathers." 

Ford  looked  at  his  watch. 

"I  seem  to  be  ahead  of  time,"  he  remarked.  "I  under 
stood  Mr.  Colbrith  to  say  that  the  meeting  would  be 
called  for  ten  o'clock." 

"Oh,  that's  all  right;  and  so  he  did,"  rejoined  the 
other  cheerfully.  "But  that  means  anything  up  to  noon 
for  a  directors'  meeting  in  New  York."  Then,  after  a 
pause :  "Do  you  know  any  of  us  personally,  Mr.  Ford  ?" 

Ford  was  rummaging  in  his  memory  again.   "I  ought 


WANTED:    THIETY-FIVE    MILLIONS      49 

to  know  you,  Mr.  Adair.  It  isn't  very  decent  to  drag  in 
resemblances,  but — " 

"The  resemblance  is  the  real  thing,  this  time/'  said 
Adair.  "You  saw  me  day  before  yesterday,  driving  out 
of  the  Overlook  grounds  as  you  were  going  in." 

Ford  shook  his  head. 

"No;  it  goes  back  of  that;  sometime  I'll  remember 
how  and  where.  But  to  answer  your  question:  I  know 
Mr.  Colbrith  slightly,  but  I've  never  met  any  of  the 
directors." 

"Well,  you  are  meeting  one  at  this  moment,"  laughed 
the  young  man,  crossing  his  legs  comfortably.  "But  I 
am  the  easiest  mark  of  the  lot,"  he  added.  "I  inherited 
my  holdings  in  Pacific  Southwestern." 

Ford  was  crucially  anxious  to  find  out  how  the  battle 
was  likely  to  go,  and  his  companion  seemed  amiably 
communicative. 

"Since  you  call  Mr.  Colbrith  'Uncle  Sidney/  I  infer 
that  you  know  what  I  am  here  for,  Mr.  Adair.  How  do 
you  think  my  proposition  is  likely  to  strike  the  board  ?" 

Again  the  young  man  laughed. 

"Fancy  your  asking  me !"  he  said.  "I  haven't  talked 
with  any  one  but  Uncle  Sidney;  and  the  most  I  could 
get  out  of  him  was  that  you  wanted  thirty-five  million 
dollars  to  spend." 

"Well,"  said  the  Westerner  anxiously,  "am  I  going  to 
get  it?" 


50  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"You  can  search  me,"  was  the  good-natured  rejoinder. 
"But  from  my  knowledge  of  the  men  you  are  going 
presently  to  wrestle  with,  I  should  say  'no/  and  itali 
cize  it." 

"Perhaps  it  might  help  me  a  little  if  I  could  know  in 
advance  the  particular  reason  for  the  italics/'  Ford 
suggested. 

"Oh,  sure.  The  principal  reason  is  that  your  name 
isn't  Hill  or  Harriman  or  Morgan  or  Gates.  Money  is 
ridiculously  sheepish.  It  will  follow  a  known  leader 
blindly,  idiotically.  But  if  it  doesn't  hear  the  familiar 
tinkle  of  the  leader's  bell,  it  is  mighty  apt  to  huddle  and 
run  back." 

Ford's  smile  was  grim. 

"I  don't  mind  saying  to  you,  Mr.  Adair,  that  this  is 
one  of  the  times  when  it  will  be  much  safer  to  huddle 
and  run  forward.  Have  you  seen  the  half-yearly  re 
port?" 

"I  ?  Heaven  forbid !  I  have  never  seen  anything  out 
of  the  Pacific  Southwestern — not  even  a  dividend." 

Ford  would  very  willingly  have  tried  to  share  his  en 
thusiasm  with  the  care-free  young  man,  whose  face  was 
still  vaguely  but  persistently  remindful  of  some  impres 
sion  antedating  the  automobile  passing;  but  now  the 
other  members  of  the  board  were  dropping  in  by  twos 
and  threes,  and  privacy  was  at  an  end. 

Just  before  President  Colbrith  took  his  place  at  the 


WANTED:    THIRTY-FIVE    MILLIONS      51 

head  of  the  long  table  to  call  the  meeting  to  order,  Adair 
leaned  forward  to  say  in  low  tones :  "I  couldn't  give  you 
the  tip  you  wanted,  Mr.  Ford,  but  I  can  give  you  another 
which  may  serve  as  well.  If  your  good  word  doesn't 
win  out,  scare  'em — scare  'em  stiff!  I  don't  know  but 
you  could  frighten  half  a  million  or  so  out  of  me  if  you 
should  try." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Ford.  "I  may  take  you  at  your 
word," — and  just  then  Mr.  Colbrith  rose  in  his  place, 
fingering  his  thin  white  beard  rather  nervously,  Ford 
thought,  and  rapping  on  the  table  for  silence. 

It  was  admitted  on  all  hands  that  the  president  of  the 
Pacific  Southwestern  was  a  careful  man  and  a  thrifty. 
It  was  these  qualities  which  had  first  determined  his 
election.  There  were  many  small  stock-holders  in  the 
company,  and  it  is  the  foible  of  small  stock-holders  to 
believe  that  rigid  economy  counts  for  more  than  adven 
turous  outreachings  in  the  larger  field. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  began,  his  high,  raucous  voice  rasp 
ing  the  silence  like  the  filing  of  a  saw,  "this  meeting  is 
called,  as  you  have  probably  been  informed,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  considering  a  plan  for  betterments  submitted  by 
Mr.  Stuart  Ford,  who  is  at  the  present  time  superin 
tendent  of  our  Plug  Mountain  Division. 

"In  making  this  unusual  innovation,  and  in  introduc 
ing  Mr.  Ford,  I  desire  to  say  that  I  have  been  actuated 
by  that  motive  of  prudence  which,  while  it  stands  firmly 


52  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

upon  its  own  feet,  is  willing  to  consider  suggestions 
from  without,  even  when  these  suggestions  appear  to  be 
totally  at  variance  with  a  policy  of  careful  and  judicious 
financiering. 

"In  presenting  Mr.  Ford  as  the  son  of  an  old  friend, 
long  since  gone  to  his  reward,  I  wish  it  distinctly  un 
derstood  that  I  am  in  no  sense  committed  to  his  plan. 
The  policy  of  this  company  under  the  present  adminis 
tration  has  been  uniformly  cautious  and  prudent:  Mr. 
Ford  would  throw  caution  and  prudence  to  the  winds. 
Our  best  efforts  have  been  directed  toward  the  saving  of 
the  ultimate  dollar  of  expense:  Mr.  Ford  urges  us  to 
spend  millions.  We  have  been  trying  to  dispose  of  some 
of  our  non-paying  branches:  Mr.  Ford  would  have  us 
acquire  others  and  build  new  lines.5' 

While  Mr.  Colbrith  was  speaking,  Adair  was  rapidly 
characterizing  the  members  for  Ford,  checking  them  off 
upon  his  fingers. 

"The  little  man  at  Uncle  Sidney's  right  is  Mackie, 
and  the  miserly  looking  one  next  to  him  is  McVeigh," 
he  whispered.  "One  of  them  will  furnish  your  coffin, 
and  the  other  will  drive  the  nails  into  it.  The  big  man 
with  the  beard  is  Brewster — a  multimillionaire ;  and  the 
one  who  looks  like  Senator  Bailey  is  Magnus,  president 
of  the  Mohican  National.  Connolly,  the  fat  Irishman, 
is  a  politician — wads  of  money,  but  not  much  interest 
in  the  game.  The  other  three — " 


WANTED:    THIRTY-FIVE    MILLIONS      53 

But  now  the  president  had  made  an  end  and  was 
beckoning  to  Ford. 

The  young  engineer  rose,  feeling  much  as  if  a  bucket 
of  ice-water  had  been  suddenly  emptied  down  the  back 
of  his  neck.  But  one  of  his  saving  qualities  was  the 
spring-like  resilience  which  responds  instantly  to  a 
shock.  Spreading  his  papers  on  the  table,  he  began  with 
a  little  apology. 

"I  didn't  come  here  this  morning  prepared  to  make  a 
promoter's  speech;  and  perhaps  it  is  just  as  well,  since 
my  gift,  if  I  have  one,  lies  in  doing  things  rather  than 
in  talking  about  them.  But  I  can  lay  a  few  facts  before 
you  which  you  may  deem  worthy  of  consideration/' 

From  this  as  a  beginning  he  went  on  swiftly  and  in 
cisively.  The  Pacific  Southwestern,  in  its  present  condi 
tion,  was  a  failure.  It  was  an  incomplete  line,  trying 
vainly  to  hold  its  own  against  great  and  powerful  sys 
tems  overlapping  it  at  either  end.  The  remedy  lay  in 
extension.  The  acquisition  of  a  controlling  interest  in 
three  short  roads,  which,  pieced  together,  would  bridge 
the  gap  between  the  Missouri  River  and  Chicago,  would 
place  the  Pacific  Southwestern  upon  an  equal  footing 
with  its  competitors  as  a  grain  carrier.  By  standardizing 
the  Plug  Mountain  narrow  gauge  and  extending  it  to 
Salt  Lake  and  beyond,  the  line  would  secure  a  western 
outlet,  and  would  be  in  a  position  to  demand  its  share 
of  transcontinental  business. 


54  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

To  finance  these  two  extensions  a  capital  of  thirty-five 
million  dollars  would  be  needed ;  five  million  dollars  for 
the  purchase  of  the  majority  stock  in  the  three  short 
roads,  and  the  remainder  for  the  western  outlet.  These 
assertions  were  not  guesses:  by  referring  to  exhibits 
marked  "a,"  "b"  and  "f,"  his  hearers  would  find  accurate 
estimates  of  cost,  not  only  of  construction,  but  also  of 
stock  purchases. 

As  to  the  manner  of  providing  the  capital,  he  had  only 
a  suggestion  to  offer.  The  five  million  dollars  necessary 
for  the  acquirement  of  a  controlling  interest  in  the  three 
short  roads  would  be  a  fair  investment.  It  could  be  cov 
ered  immediately  by  a  reissue — share  for  share — of  the 
reorganization  stock  of  the  P.  S-W.,  which  would  am 
ply  secure  the  investors,  since  the  stock  of  the  most 
prosperous  of  the  three  local  roads  was  listed  at 
twenty-eight,  ten  points  lower  than  the  present  market 
quotation  of  P.  S-W. 

The  thirty  million  dollar  extension  fund  might  be 
raised  by  issuing  second  mortgage  bonds  upon  the  entire 
system,  or  the  new  line  itself  could  be  bonded  mile  for 
mile  under  a  separate  charter.  Ford  modestly  disclaimed 
any  intention  of  dictating  the  financial  policy ;  this  was 
not  in  his  line.  But  again  he  would  submit  facts.  The 
grain  crop  in  the  West  was  phenomenally  large  in  pros 
pect.  With  its  own  eastern  terminal  in  Chicago,  the 
Pacific  Southwestern  could  control  the  grain  shipments 


WANTED:   THIRTY*FIVE    MILLIONS      55 

in  its  own  territory.  With  the  moving  of  the  grain,  the 
depressed  P.  S-W.  stock  would  inevitably  recover,  and  on 
a  rising  market  the  new  issue  of  bonds  could  doubtless 
be  floated. 

The  enthusiast  closed  his  argument  with  a  hasty 
summing-up  of  the  benefits  which  must,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  accrue.  From  being  an  alien  link  in  the  great 
transcontinental  chain,  the  Pacific  Southwestern  would 
rise  at  a  bound  to  the  dignity  of  a  great  railway  system ; 
a  power  to  be  reckoned  with  among  the  other  great  sys 
tems  gridironing  the  West.  Its  earnings  would  be  en 
hanced  at  every  point;  cross  lines  which  now  fed  its 
competitors  would  become  its  allies ;  the  local  lines  to  be 
welded  into  the  eastern  end  of  the  system  would  share 
at  once  in  the  prosperity  of  a  strong  through  line. 

For  the  western  extension  he  could  speak  from  per 
sonal  knowledge  of  the  region  to  be  penetrated.  Apart 
from  the  new  line's  prime  object — that  of  providing  an 
outlet  for  the  system — there  was  a  goodly  heritage  of 
local  business  awaiting  the  first  railroad  to  reach  the 
untapped  territory.  Mines,  valueless  now  for  the  lack  of 
transportation  facilities,  would  become  abundant  pro 
ducers;  and  there  were  many  fertile  valleys  and  mesas 
to  attract  the  ranchman,  who  would  find  on  the  western 
slopes  of  the  mountains  an  unfailing  water  supply  for 
his  reservoirs  and  ditches.  Ford  did  not  hesitate  to  pre 
dict  that  within  a  short  time  the  extension  would  earn 


56  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

more,  mile  for  mile,,  than  the  grain-belt  portion  of  the 
system. 

When  he  sat  down  he  felt  that  his  cause  was  lost. 
There  was  no  enthusiasm,  no  approval,  in  the  faces  of 
his  auditors.  After  a  short  and  informal  discussion,  in 
which  the  engineer  was  called  on  to  explain  his  plans 
and  estimates  in  detail  to  one  and  another  of  the  mem 
bers,  Magnus,  the  bank  president,  sufficiently  summed 
up  the  sense  of  the  meeting  when  he  said : 

"There  is  no  question  about  the  ingenuity  of  your 
plan,  Mr.  Ford.  You  must  have  given  a  great  deal  of 
time  and  thought  to  it.  But  it  is  rather  too  large  for  us, 
I'm  afraid,  and  there  are  too  many  contingencies.  Your 
province,  I  understand,  is  the  building  and  operating  of 
railroads,  and  it  is  nothing  to  your  discredit  that  you 
are  unfamiliar  with  the  difficulties  of  financing  an  un 
dertaking  as  vast  as  this  proposal  of  yours." 

"I  don't  deny  the  difficulties,"  said  Ford.  "But  they 
wouldn't  seem  to  be  insuperable." 

"Not  from  your  point  of  view,"  rejoined  the  banker 
suavely.  "But  you  will  admit  that  they  are  very  con 
siderable.  The  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  competing 
systems  would  be  something  tremendous.  No  stone 
would  be  left  unturned  in  the  effort  to  dismount  us.  To 
go  no  further  into  the  matter  than  the  proposed  pur 
chase  of  the  majority  stocks  in  the  three  short  roads :  at 
the  first  signal  in  that  field  you  would  find  those  stocks 


WANTED:    THIRTY-FIVE    MILLIONS      57 

flying  skyward  in  ten-point  advances,  and  your  five  mil 
lions  wouldn't  be  a  drop  in  the  bucket.  In  view  of  the 
difficulties,  I  think  I  voice  the  conviction  of  the  board 
when  I  say  that  the  plan  is  too  hazardous/' 

The  nods  of  assent  were  too  numerous  to  leave  Ford 
any  hope  of  turning  the  tide  in  his  favor.  He  rose, 
gathered  up  his  papers,  and  reached  for  his  hat. 

"It  is  very  pointedly  your  own  funeral,  gentlemen/' 
he  said  curtly.  "  'Nothing  venture,  nothing  have'  is  an 
old  proverb,  but  it  is  as  true  now  as  it  was  when  it  was 
coined.  With  P.  S-W.  stock  at  thirty-eight  and  steadily 
declining ;  with  another  dividend  about  to  be  passed ;  and 
with  the  certainty  that  the  July  interest  on  the  bonds 
will  have  to  be  defaulted  unless  some  compromise  can  be 
effected  with  the  bondholders — " 

"What's  that  you're  saying?"  broke  in  Mackie,  whose 
P.  S-W.  holdings  were  large. 

Ford  drew  a  folded  paper  from  his  pocket  and  laid  it 
on  the  table. 

"I  was  merely  quoting  from  the  auditor's  semiannual 
report,  of  which  that  is  a  summary,"  he  said,  indicating 
the  folded  paper.  "The  report  itself  will  doubtless  reach 
you  in  a  day  or  two.  It  would  seem  to  an  unprejudiced 
observer  that  the  present  condition  spells  something  like 
a  receivership,  unless  you  have  the  bondholders  with 
you." 

"One   moment,   Mr.   Ford,"   interposed   the   banker 


58  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

member;  but  Ford  was  working  up  to  his  climax  and 
refused  to  be  side-tracked. 

"Of  course,  as  an  officer  of  the  company,  I  have  felt  in 
duty  bound  to  bring  my  grist  first  to  the  company's  mill. 
But  if  you  gentlemen  don't  wish  to  grind  it,  it  will  be 
ground,  notwithstanding.  I  could  very  easily  have  found 
a  market  for  my  proposal  without  coming  to  New  York." 

With  which  parting  shot,  and  a  word  of  apology  for 
having  taken  the  time  of  the  board  to  no  good  purpose, 
he  bowed  himself  out,  closing  the  door  upon  a  second 
attempt  on  the  part  of  the  banker  member  to  renew  the 
argument. 


YI 


THE  AWAKENING  OF   CHARLES   EDWARD 

Ford  went  directly  to  his  hotel  from  the  meeting  in 
the  Broad  Street  board  room,  paid  his  bill,  and  had 
himself  shot  up  to  the  fifth  floor  to  prepare  for  a  swift 
retreat  from  the  scene  of  his  humiliating  defeat.  It  was 
hardly  in  keeping  with  his  boast  of  persistence  that  he 
should  suffer  himself  to  be  thus  routed  by  a  single  re 
verse,  however  crushing.  But  in  a  world  where  every 
problem  contains  its  human  factor,  red  wrath  accounts 
for  much  that  is  otherwise  unaccountable. 

Ford  was  thoroughly  and  unreasoningly  angry  and 
disgusted  when  he  began  to  fling  his  belongings  into  the 
small  steamer  trunk,  and  it  was  only  natural  that  he 
should  turn  with  a  little  brow-wrinkling  of  resentment 
when,  a  little  later,  Mr.  Charles  Edward  Adair,  follow 
ing  his  card  up  to  the  fifth  floor  front,  lounged  good- 
naturedly  into  the  room. 

59 


60  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

"Beg  pardon,  I'm  sure,"  said  the  intruder  easily. 
"Didn't  know  you  were  busy.  I  thought  maybe  you'd 
like  to  know  the  effect  of  your  little  double-headed 
bombshell,  and  I  couldn't  be  sure  Uncle  Sidney  would 
take  the  trouble  to  tell  you." 

Ford  made  no  effort  to  conceal  his  contempt  for  the 
financial  gods. 

"I  don't  imagine  it  will  take  you  very  long  to  tell 
it,"  he  retorted.  "Nothing  short  of  a  combined  earth 
quake  and  volcanic  eruption  would  have  any  effect  upon 
that  crowd." 

"Oh,  but  you're  wrong !"  protested  Adair.  "That  shot 
of  yours  with  the  semiannual  summary  for  a  projectile 
stirred  'em  up  good.  It  seems  that  Uncle  Sidney  and 
Hertford  and  Morelock — they're  the  executive  commit 
tee,  you  know — have  had  the  auditor's  figures  for  some 
days,  but  they  hadn't  thought  it  necessary  to  harrow  the 
feelings  of  the  other  members  of  the  board  with  the  cata 
clysmic  details.  So  there  was  a  jolly  row.  Magnus 
wanted  to  know,  top-loftily,  why  a  small  official  from  the 
farther  end  of  the  system  should  be  the  first  to  bring 
the  news;  and  Mackie  was  so  wrathy  that  he  inadver 
tently  put  the  hot  end  of  his  cigar  in  his  mouth.  Even 
Connolly  woke  up  enough  to  say  that  it  was  blanked  bad 
politics." 

"But  nothing  came  of  it?"  said  Ford,  hope  rising  in 
spite  of  the  negative  query. 


AWAKENING    OF    CHARLES    EDWAED     61 

"No ;  nothing  but  a  general  hand-out  of  pretty  sharp 
talk.  What  was  needed  right  then  was  a  unifier — some 
body  who  could  take  command  and  coax  or  bully  the 
scrapping  factions  into  line.  Magnus  tried  it,  but  he's 
too  smooth.  Brewster  was  the  man,  but  he  has  too  many 
other  and  bigger  irons  in  the  fire  to  care  much  about 
P.  S-W.  Connolly  could  have  done  it  if  the  scrap  had 
been  a  political  split,  but  he  was  out  of  his  element." 

"Humph!"  growled  Ford.  "It  didn't  occur  to  me 
that  there  were  any  differences  of  opinion  to  be  recon 
ciled.  The  entire  board  sat  on  my  proposition — as  a 
unit." 

Adair  laughed  with  imperturbable  good-humor. 

"The  factions  were  there,  just  the  same.  You  see,  it's 
like  this :  Brewster  and  Magnus  and  two  or  three  more 
are  pretty  well-to-do,  and  their  holdings  in  P.  S-W. 
don't  cut  much  of  a  figure  with  them,  one  way  or  an 
other.  The  others  have  more  stock  in  the  company,  and 
fewer  millions.  When  the  jangle  came,  Brewster  and 
the  heavy  men  said,  C0h,  let  it  go ;  it  isn't  worth  bother 
ing  with.'  Naturally,  the  little  fellows,  with  more  to  lose 
and  less  money-nerve,  said,  'No.' " 

"It  spells  the  same  word  for  me,  in  any  event,"  Ford 
commented,  and  went  on  pitching  things  inttf  his 
steamer  trunk. 

Adair  got  upon  his  feet  and  strolled  away  to  the  win 
dow. 


62  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

When  he  turned  again  to  face  the  beaten  one  he  said : 

"If  I  wasn't  so  infernally  lazy,  Mr.  Ford,  I  more  than 
half  believe  that  I  could  pull  this  thing  off  for  you, 
myself.  But  that  is  the  curse  of  being  born  with  too 
much  money.  I  can  take  a  plunge  into  business  now  and 
then — I've  done  it.  But  my  best  friend  couldn't  bet  on 
me  two  days  in  succession." 

Ford  looked  up  quickly. 

"Then  don't  put  your  hand  to  this  plow,  Mr.  Adair. 
I'll  be  frank  with  you.  I  can  fit  the  mechanical  parts 
of  this  scheme  of  mine  together,  so  that  they  will  run 
true  and  do  business.  But  I,  or  any  man  in  my  place, 
would  have  to  have  solid  backing  here  in  New  York ;  a 
board  that  would  be  as  aggressive  as  a  handful  of  rebels 
fighting  for  life,  and  every  man  of  it  determined  to  win 
out  or  smash  something.  Mr.  Magnus  spoke  of  the  op 
position  we  should  encounter  from  our  competitors.  He 
might  have  said  more.  What  the  Transcontinental,  for 
example,  wouldn't  do  to  obliterate  us  needn't  be  cata 
logued.  How  do  you  suppose  the  present  P.  S-W.  board 
would  fare  in  such  a  fight  ?" 

The  youngest  member  of  the  flouted  board  laughed 
again. 

<cYou  mustn't  say  in  your  wrath  that  all  men  are  liars 
— or  cowards.  There  is  plenty  of  fight  in  our  crowd; 
and  plenty  of  money,  too,  if  you  could  only  get  it  suffi 
ciently  scared." 


AWAKENING    OF   CHARLES    EDWARD     63 

"I've  done  my  best,"  said  Ford,  slamming  the  lid  of 
the  trunk  and  buckling  the  straps  vigorously.  "The 
next  time  I'll  find  my  market  first  and  build  my  scheme 
afterward." 

"Well,  if  I  can  say  it  without  offense,  I'm  honestly 
sorry  for  you,  Mr.  Ford ;  you've  been  butchered  to  make 
a  Broad  Street  holiday,"  said  Adair,  lounging  toward 
the  door.  "You  are  going  back  to  the  West,  I  suppose  ?" 

"Yes." 

"What  line?" 

"Pennsylvania;  five-ten  this  afternoon." 

"That  is  a  long  time  between  drinks.  Suppose  you 
come  up  to  the  club  and  have  luncheon  with  me  ?" 

Ford  hesitated,  watch  in  hand. 

"I  was  about  to  lie  to  you,  Mr.  Adair,  and  plead 
business ;  but  I  shan't.  I'll  tell  you  the  plain  truth.  I'm 
too  sore  just  now  to  be  any  good  fellow's  good  company." 

"Which  is  precisely  the  reason  why  I  asked  you," 
laughed  the  golden  youth.  "Come  on ;  let's  go  now.  You 
can  take  it  out  on  me  as  much  as  you  like,  you  know. 
I  shan't  mind." 

But  the  club  luncheon  ignored  the  business  affair  com 
pletely,  as  Adair  intended  it  should.  Ford  came  out  of 
the  shell  of  disappointment  with  the  salad  course,  and 
by  way  of  reparation  for  his  former  attitude  talked 
rather  more  freely  of  himself  than  he  was  wont  to  do 
on  such  short  acquaintance  with  any  one.  The  young 


64  EMPIEE   BUILDEES 

millionaire  met  him  quite  half-way  on  this  road  to  a 
better  understanding,  contrasting  with  mild  envy  Ford's 
well-filled,  busy  life  with  his  own  erratic  efforts  at  time- 
killing. 

"You  make  me  half  sorry  for  myself/'  he  said,  when 
they  went  to  the  smoking-room  to  light  their  cigars. 
"It's  no  less  than  a  piteous  misfortune  when  a  fellow's 
father  has  beaten  all  the  covers  of  accomplishment  for 
him." 

Ford  could  laugh  now  without  being  bitter. 

"The  game  isn't  all  corralled,  even  for  you,  Mr.  Adair. 
There  was  excellent  good  shooting  for  you  in  that  direc 
tors'  meeting  this  morning,  but  you  wouldn't  take  the 
trouble." 

"That's  the  fact,"  was  the  easy-going  rejoinder.  "That 
is  just  what  my  sister  is  always  telling  me — that  I  won't 
take  the  trouble.  And  yet  I  do  take  the  trouble  to  begin 
a  lot  of  things ;  only  they  never  seem  worth  while  after 
a  few  days'  dip  into  them." 

"Pick  out  bigger  ones,"  suggested  Ford.  "My  trouble 
is  just  the  other  way  about;  I  am  always  tackling  things 
that  are  worlds  too  big  for  me — just  as  I  have  this  time." 

"It  isn't  too  big  for  you,  Mr.  Ford.  It  was  too  big  for 
Colbrith,  Magnus,  et  dl.  And,  besides,  you're  not  go 
ing  to  give  it  up.  You'll  drop  off  in  Chicago,  hunt  up 
some  meat-packer  or  other  Croesus,  and  land  your  new 
railroad  independently  of  the  P.  S-W." 


AWAKENING   OF    CHARLES    EDWARD     65 

It  was  a  measure  of  the  sincerity  of  Ford's  liking  for 
his  host  when  he  said :  "That  little  shot  of  mine  at  your 
colleagues  was  merely  a  long  bluff.  If  my  scheme  can't 
be  worked  with  the  P.  S-W.,  it  can't  well  be  worked 
without  it.  We  are  lacking  the  two  end-links  in  the 
chain — which  I  could  forge.  But  my  two  end-links  with 
out  the  middle  one  wouldn't  attract  anybody." 

It  was  quite  late  in  the  afternoon  when  they  left  the 
club,  and  Ford  had  no  more  than  time  to  check  his  lug 
gage  and  get  to  his  train.  He  wondered  a  little  when 
Adair  went  with  him  to  the  ferry,  and  was  not  ungrate 
ful  for  the  hospitality  which  seemed  to  be  directed  to 
ward  a  lightening  of  the  burden  of  failure.  But  Adair's 
word  of  leave-taking,  flung  across  the  barrier  when  the 
chains  of  the  landing-stage  were  rattling  to  their  rise, 
was  singularly  irrelevant. 

"By  the  way,  Mr.  Ford ;  what  time  did  you  say  your 
train  would  reach  Chicago  ?" 

"At  eight  forty-five  to-morrow  evening,"  replied  the 
beaten  one ;  and  then  the  boat  swung  out  of  its  slip  and 
the  retreat  without  honor  was  begun. 


VII 


HAMMER  AND  TONGS 

It  was  raining  dismally  the  evening  of  the  following 
day  when  Ford  saw  from  his  Pullman  window  the  dull 
sky-glow  of  the  metropolis  of  the  Middle  West.  It  had 
been  a  dispiriting  day  throughout.  When  a  man  has 
flung  himself  at  his  best  into  a  long  battle  which  ends 
finally  in  unqualified  loss,  the  heavens  are  as  brass,  and 
the  future  is  apt  to  reflect  only  the  pale  light  of  the 
past  failure. 

It  was  after  the  train  had  entered  the  suburbs  of  Chi 
cago  that  a  blue-coated  messenger  boy  came  through  the 
Pullman,  with  the  car  conductor  for  his  guide.  Ford 
saw  himself  pointed  out,  and  a  moment  later  was  read 
ing  a  telegram,  with  a  tumult,  not  of  the  drumming  car 
wheels,  roaring  in  his  ears. 

Had  a  talk  with  my  sister  and  made  up  my  mind  to  see 
you  through — if  I  don't  get  tired  and  quit,  as  usual.  Secure 

66 


HAMMER   AND   TONGS  6? 

options  on  that  short-road  stock  quick,  and  .wire  me  care 
McV.  &  M.  Funds  to  your  credit  in  Algonquin  National, 
Chicago.  Another  directors'  meeting  to-day,  and  things 
look  a  little  less  chaotic.  Answer.  ADAIB. 

For  some  time  Ford  could  only  read  and  re-read  the 
exciting  telegram,  scarcely  trusting  the  evidence  of  his 
senses.  That  the  coldly  indifferent  members  of  the  P. 
S-W.  board,  with  a  man  like  President  Colbrith  at  their 
head,  could  be  swung  into  line  in  the  short  space  of  a 
single  day  by  a  young  fellow  who  seemed  to  be  little 
more  than  a  spoiled  son  of  fortune,  was  blankly  in 
credible. 

But  he  was  not  long  in  realizing  that  the  cherished 
scheme  for  which  he  had  studied  and  struggled  was 
actually  beginning  to  stagger  to  its  feet ;  or  in  reaching 
the  equally  stirring  conclusion  that  his  part  in  the  sud 
denly  reopened  game  called  instantly  for  shrewd  blows 
and  the  swiftest  possible  action. 

The  stock-holders  in  the  three  local  roads  which  were 
to  be  united  to  bridge  the  Chicago-Missouri  River  gap 
were  scattered  all  over  the  Middle  West.  To  secure  the 
necessary  options  on  working  majorities  of  the  stock 
would  be  a  task  for  a  financial  diplomat,  and  one  who 
could  break  the  haste-making  record  by  being  in  a  dozen 
different  places  at  one  and  the  same  moment.  Moreover, 
secrecy  became  a  prime  factor  in  the  problem.  If  the 
opposition,  and  particularly  the  Transcontinental  peo- 


68  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

pie,  should  get  wind  of  the  move,  it  would  take  fifteen 
millions  to  do  the  work  of  five,  as  Banker  Magnus  had 
intimated. 

Notwithstanding  the  thickly  marshaled  obstacles,  Ford 
had  his  plan  of  campaign  pretty  well  thought  out  by  the 
time  his  train  was  slowing  into  the  Union  Station.  Be 
fore  going  to  New  York  he  had  painstakingly  'located" 
the  required  holdings  of  the  three  stocks.  Some  of  them 
were  in  Chicago,  but  the  greater  number  of  the  men  to 
be  bargained  with  were  local  capitalists  living  in  the 
smaller  cities  along  the  lines  of  the  three  short  railroads. 

In  his  bag  was  a  carefully  compiled  list  of  these  stock 
holders,  with  their  addresses  and  the  amounts  of  their 
respective  holdings.  At  the  worst,  he  concluded,  it 
should  mean  nothing  more  formidable  than  a  deal  of 
quick  traveling,  some  anxious  bargaining,  perhaps,  and 
a  little  finesse  to  keep  his  object  in  securing  the  op 
tions  safely  in  the  background. 

This  was  how  it  appeared  in  the  prospect;  and  the 
young  engineer  had  yet  to  learn  that  the  securing  of 
options  is  a  trade  by  itself — a  trade  by  no  means  to  be 
caught  up  in  passing,  even  by  the  most  gifted  of  tyros. 

Hence,  it  was  extremely  fortunate  for  this  particular 
tyro — more  fortunate  than  he  could  possibly  know  at 
the  moment — that  his  telephone  message  sent  from  the 
first  telephone  he  could  reach  after  his  train  stopped  in 
the  Union  Station,  caught  Kenneth  at  the  Green  Bag 


HAMMER   AND    TONGS  69 

Club.  It  was  a  mere  chance  that  he  knew  that  Kenneth, 
the  senior  member  of  the  firm  of  attorneys  having 
general  oversight  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern's  legal 
department,  was  at  the  moment  in  Chicago;  a  chance 
hanging  upon  the  fact  that  he  had  met  Kenneth  as  he 
was  passing  through  on  his  way  eastward.  But  it  was  not 
by  chance  that  the  first  familiar  face  he  saw  on  entering 
the  rotunda  of  the  Grand  Pacific  Hotel  was  that  of  Ken 
neth.  The  sight  was  merely  the  logical  result  of  Ford's 
urgent  request  telephoned  to  the  lawyer's  club. 

"By  Jove,  Kenneth;  this  comes  within  two  inches  of 
being  a  miracle ! — my  catching  you  here  before  you  had 
started  West,"  Ford  ejaculated.  And  then:  "When  are 
you  going  back  ?" 

"I  am  supposed  to  be  on  the  way  now/'  was  the  law 
yer's  reply.  "I  had  made  all  my  arrangements  to  start 
back  to-night  on  the  slow  train,  but  I  dined  with  some 
friends  on  the  North  Side  and  made  a  miss.  Where  have 
you  been  ?" 

"I'm  just  in  from  New  York.  Let  me  register  and 
get  a  room ;  and  you  put  away  any  lingering  notion  you 
may  have  of  heading  westward  to-night.  I've  got  to  have 
your  ear  for  a  few  hours  to  begin  with,  and  the  whole 
of  you  for  the  next  few  days.  No;  don't  probe  me  here. 
Wait,  and  I'll  unload  on  you  gradually.  You  won't  be 
sorry  you  missed  your  train." 

Fifteen  minutes  later  Ford  had  his  adviser  safely  be- 


70  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

hind  a  closed  door,  and  had  put  him  succinctly  in  pos 
session  of  the  world-subverting  facts,  as  far  as  they 
went.  When  he  concluded,  the  lawyer  was  shaking  his 
head  dubiously,  just  as  Auditor  Evans  had  done. 

"Ford,  have  you  any  adequate  idea  of  what  a  tremen 
dous  proposition  you  are  up  against?"  he  asked  quietly, 
helping  himself  to  a  cigar  out  of  the  engineer's  freshly 
opened  box. 

"I  don't  believe  I  have  underrated  the  difficulties, 
any  of  them,"  said  Ford,  matching  the  attorney's  grav 
ity.  "There  are  bones  all  the  way  along,  but  I  think  I 
have  struck  the  biggest  of  them  just  here.  I  ought  to 
be  in  a  dozen  places  at  once,  and  not  later  than  to-mor 
row  noon.  That's  something  I  can't  quite  compass." 

"Getting  these  options,  you  mean  ?  That  is  very  true ; 
but  it  isn't  all  of  it,  by  long  odds.  There  are  the  thou 
sand  and  one  mechanical  details  to  be  worked  out:  the 
coupling  up  of  these  three  local  lines  at  their  connecting 
points,  the  securing  of  proper  trackage  or  trackage 
rights  at  these  junctions,  the  general  ordering  of  things 
so  that  a  through  line  may  be  opened  immediately  when 
the  stock  is  secured.  If  there  were  ten  of  you,  you 
couldn't  get  things  licked  into  shape  in  time  to  get  in 
on  the  grain  carrying  this  season." 

Ford  had  relighted  his  cigar,  which  had  gone  out  in 
the  explanatory  interval,  and  was  blowing  smoke-rings 
toward  the  ceiling. 


HAMMER   AND    TONGS  71 

"I  may  be  the  biggest  ass  this  side  of  the  jack  trails, 
and  the  most  conceited,  Kenneth;  but  you're  over  on 
my  side  of  the  ring  when  you  talk  about  the  mechanical 
obstacles.  What  I'm  worrying  about  now  is  the  fact 
that  I  can't  do  two  things  at  once.  The  options  must 
be  secured  before  we  can  make  the  fifth  part  of  a  move 
in  the  other  field;  and  the  Lord  only  knows  how  long 
that  will  take.  To  hurry  is  to  lose  out." 

The  lawyer  nodded.  "And  not  to  hurry  is  to  lose  out, 
too,"  he  qualified.  Then  he  smoked  in  thoughtful  silence 
for  five  full  minutes  before  he  said,  abruptly :  "Give  me 
your  list  of  stock-holders  and  turn  the  option  business 
over  to  the  legal  department,  where  it  properly  belongs. 
That  will  leave  you  foot-loose  to  go  after  the  mechanical 
matter.  How  does  that  suit  you  ?" 

Ford  sprang  to  his  feet. 

"By  Jove,  Kenneth,  you're  a  man  and  a  brother; 
I'm  not  forgetting  that  you  are  taking  this  entire  fairy 
tale  on  my  personal  say-so ;  and  I  shan't  forget  it,  either. 
It's  what  I  wanted  to  ask — and  was  afraid  to  ask,  after 
I  got  you  safely  jailed  up  here." 

The  attorney's  smile  was  grim  but  friendly. 

"I'm  not  forgetting  how  you  took  a  sick  man  over 
into  the  Pannikin  wilderness  on  a  two-months  hunting 
trip  last  fall  and  made  a  well  man  of  him,  Ford,"  he 
said.  "Any  man  who  can  shoot  as  straight  as  you  do 
wouldn't  be  sitting  here  telling  me  lies  about  a  trifling 


72  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

little  matter  involving  the  expenditure  of  a  beggarl} 
thirty-five  millions.  But  to  come  down  to  earth  again ; 
you  haven't  shifted  any  considerable  part  of  the  burden, 
you  know.  I  can  do  this  bit  of  routine  work;  but  the 
main  thing  is  up  to  you,  just  as  it  was  before  I  said 
yes." 

Ford  rose,  stretching  himself  like  a  man  who  has  just 
been  relieved  of  a  burden  whose  true  weight  was  ap 
preciable  only  in  its  lifting. 

"I  know,"  he  said  cheerfully.  "It  has  been  up  to  me, 
all  along.  In  the  morning  we'll  go  around  to  the  Al 
gonquin  National,  and  I'll  put  you  into  the  financial 
saddle.  Then  I'll  get  out  on  the  line,  and  by  the  time 
you  have  the  stock  corralled,  we'll  be  practically  ready 
to  pull  through  freight — if  not  passengers — from  Den 
ver  to  Chicago.  Oh,  I  know  what  I  am  talking  about," 
he  added,  when  the  general  counsel  smiled  his  incred 
ulity.  "This  is  no  affair  of  yesterday  with  me.  I  have 
every  mile  of  these  three  short  roads  mapped  and  cross- 
sectioned;  I  have  copies  of  all  their  terminal  and  junc 
tion-point  contracts.  I  know  exactly  what  we  can  do, 
and  what  we  can't  do." 

The  lawyer's  comment  was  frankly  praiseful,  not  to 
say  flattering. 

"You're  a  wonder,  Ford — and  that's  no  figure  of 
speech.  How  on  earth  did  you  manage  to  do  it  all  at 
such  long  range  ?" 


HAMMER   AND    TONGS  73 

Ford's  smile  was  reminiscent  of  the  obstacles. 

"It  would  take  me  all  night  to  tell  you  in  detail,  Ken 
neth.  But  I  did  it.  It's  no  mere  brag  to  say  that  I 
could  walk  into  the  Chicago,  Peoria  &  Davenport  gen 
eral  offices  here  to-morrow  morning  and  organize  a 
through  service  over  the  P.  S-W.  and  the  three  stub 
lines  within  twenty-fbur  hours,  if  I  had  to." 

"Well,  that  part  of  it  is  far  enough  beyond  me,"  said 
the  attorney.  "The  stock-chasing  is  more  in  my  line.  I 
hope  we  can  keep  quiet  enough  about  it  so  that  the  op 
position  won't  guess  what  we  are  trying  to  do.  You're 
sure  it  won't  be  given  away  from  the  New  York  end  ?" 

It  was  the  engineer's  turn  to  shake  his  head  and  to 
look  dubious. 

"Now  you  are  shouting,  Kenneth.  I  can't  tell  any 
thing  about  it.  You'll  remember  that  when  I  left  New 
York  the  board  had  turned  the  plan  down,  definitely 
and  permanently,  as  I  supposed.  I  should  say  that  our 
only  safety  lies  in  lightning  speed.  When  you  get  the 
options  on  those  controlling  stock  majorities  snugly  on 
deposit  in  the  Algonquin  National,  we  can  draw  our 
first  long  breath.  Isn't  that  about  the  way  it  strikes 
you?" 

"It  is,  precisely,"  agreed  the  general  counsel,  rising 
and  finding  his  hat.  "And  because  it  does  strike  me  that 
way,  I  think  I'll  go  down  and  do  a  little  telegraphing 
to-night." 


74  EMPIKE   BUILDEKS 

"Hold  on  a  minute,"  said  Ford,  "and  I'll  give  you  a 
message  to  take  down,  if  you  don't  mind.  I  must  an 
swer  Adair,  and  it  won't  do  any  harm  to  prod  him  a 
little — on  the  secrecy  side." 

Kenneth  waited,  with  his  hand  on  the  door-knob,  as  it 
chanced.  Hence  the  opening  of  the  door  a  minute  or  two 
later  was  quite  without  any  preliminary  stir  of  warn 
ing  in  the  room  of  conference.  That  was  possibly  the 
reason  why  the  lawyer  almost  fell  over  a  man  crouching 
in  the  corridor. 

"Hello,  there !"  said  Kenneth ;  "I  beg  your  pardon." 

The  man  got  upon  his  feet,  exhibiting  all  the  signs 
of  intoxication. 

"Beg  yoursh,  I'm  sure,"  he  mumbled,  and  was  lurch 
ing  crookedly  away  when  the  lawyer  suddenly  came  to 
his  senses  and  grabbed  at  him.  The  clutching  hand  fell 
short,  and  there  was  an  agile  foot-race  down  the  cor 
ridor,  fruitless  for  Kenneth,  since  the  fugitive  suddenly 
developed  sobriety  enough  to  run  like  a  deer.  Beaten 
in  the  foot-race,  Kenneth  went  back  for  a  word  with 
Ford. 

"The  battle  is  on,"  was  the  form  the  word  took.  "There 
was  a  man  here,  listening  at  the  key-hole,  when  I  opened 
the  door.  How  much  he  overheard  we'll  be  likely  to  find 
out  to-morrow  when  we  begin  to  pull  the  strings. 
Thought  I'd  give  you  the  pointer.  Good  night,  again." 


yin 


THE  AUTOMATIC  AIR 

Set  out  In  cold  type,  Ford's  itinerary  for  the  four 
days  following  his  conference  with  Kenneth  would  read 
like  the  abbreviated  diary  of  a  man  dodging  the  sheriff. 
His  "ticker"  memorandum  for  that  period  is  still  in 
existence,  but  the  notes  are  the  hurried  strokes  of  the 
pen  of  haste,  intelligible,  we  may  say,  only  to  the  man 
who  made  them.  To  quote : 

"Thursday,  nine  A.  MV  Peoria — see  Sedgwick;  ten — 
make  trackage  contract  with  T.  P.  &  W. ;  eleven  A.  M., 
Davenport — inventory  motive  power — see  chief  de- 
spatcher — get  profiles  and  maps — get  copies  of  yard  con 
tracts — get  crossing  rights — get  total  tonnage  of  grain 
cars.  Three  P.  M.,  Hannibal — see  Berdan  and  whip  him 
into  line — inspect  shops — get  contracts — get — " 

But  the  string  of  "gets"  fills  the  page,  and  is  vital 
now  to  no  living  soul  of  man,  least  of  all  to  us  who  are 

75 


76  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

interested  only  in  finding  out  if  our  young  captain  of 
industry  actually  did  make  good  his  boast  of  flogging 
the  three  short  roads  into  some  semblance  of  a  through 
line  in  the  brief  interval  at  his  disposal ;  and  this  with 
out  advertising  to  the  railroad  world  at  large  who  he 
represented  and  what  he  was  doing. 

He  did  it,  and  without  a  slip  for  which  he  could  be 
held  responsible.  It  was  a  wire  from  the  chief  office  of 
the  Transcontinental  in  New  York,  a  telegram  inspired 
by  sundry  leakages  from  Pacific  Southwestern  sources, 
that  gave  him  a  silent  and  observant  follower  in  all  of 
his  dodgings.  Of  this,  however,  he  was  in  blissful  ignor 
ance.  Twice,  indeed,  he  sat  in  the  same  Pullman  section 
with  his  "shadow,"  quite  without  suspecting  it ;  and  once 
he  was  saved  from  disaster — also  without  suspecting  it. 

It  was  at  a  way  station  in  Missouri,  and  the  section- 
sharing  traveling  companion,  who  had  paid  only  for  an 
hour's  ride  in  the  Pullman,  was  leaving  the  train.  His 
hand-bag  chanced  to  be  the  exact  counterpart  of  Ford's : 
what  more  natural  than  that  he  should  make  the  mis 
take  of  taking  the  wrong  one  ?  Ford  caught  him  in  the 
vestibule,  and  there  was  a  reexchange,  accompanied  by 
grateful  acknowledgments  and  profuse  apologies  from 
the  debarking  one.  Ford,  immersed  fathoms  deep  in  his 
problems,  thought  nothing  of  it;  but  a  moment  lost 
would  have  been  a  cause  lost,  if  he  had  guessed  it.  For 
the  mistake  was  no  mistake,  and  the  hand-bag  rescued 


THE    AUTOMATIC    AIR  77 

contained  documents  for  which  the  Transcontinental 
Company  would  have  paid  a  month's  salary  of  its  board 
of  vice-presidents,,  charging  the  amount,  not  to  profit 
and  loss,  but  rather  to  salvage. 

It  was  on  the  fourth  day  of  the  campaign,  while  Ford 
was  working  his  way  on  an  inspection  trip  over  the  third 
link  in  the  short-lines  chain,  that  two  telegrams  over 
took  him. 

One  was  from  Adair,  announcing  the  tardy,  but  now 
certain  triumph  of  the  expansionist  faction  in  the  board 
of  P.  S-W.  directors,  and  begging  pathetically  for  news 
of  the  option-getting.  The  other  was  signed  "K,"  and 
Ford  had  a  sharp  attack  of  joy  when  he  read  it.  The  at 
torney  had  been  successful  at  all  points.  The  necessary 
stock  majorities  were  secured  and  the  certificates  were 
safely  on  deposit  in  the  Algonquin  National  Bank,  in 
Chicago.  What  remained  was  only  a  matter  of  routine, 
provided  the  P.  S-W.  bidders  would  furnish  the  capital 
for  the  purchases. 

Ford  swamped  the  local  operator  at  the  next  way  sta 
tion  with  a  thick  sheaf  of  "rush"  telegrams,  left  the 
west-bound  train  at  the  first  cross-road  junction,  and 
caught  a  night  express  on  a  fast  line  for  Chicago.  Ken 
neth  was  waiting  for  him  at  the  hotel ;  and  after  break 
fast  there  was  another  telegram  from  Adair.  Matters 
were  still  progressing  favorably,  and  President  Colbrith, 
traveling  in  his  private  car,  "Nadia,"  via  the  Lake  Shore, 


78  EMPIRE   BUILDEES 

would  be  in  Chicago  the  following  morning  to  take  final 
action  in  the  stock  purchases. 

Ford  gave  the  message  to  Kenneth,  and  the  attorney 
drummed  softly  on  the  table  with  his  finger-tips  when 
he  read  the  announcement. 

"We  are  in  for  it  now,"  he  said  with  a  grimace  of  dis 
may.  "If  Mr.  Colbrith  doesn't  manage  to  queer  the 
whole  deal,  it  will  be  because  he  has  suffered  a  complete 
change  of  heart." 

Ford  answered  the  grimace  with  a  scowl,  and  the  mas 
terful  side  of  him  came  uppermost. 

"What  in  the  name  of  common  sense  were  they  think 
ing  of  to  send  him  out  here  T'  he  gritted. 

The  general  counsel  laughed. 

"You  don't  know  Mr.  Colbrith  as  well  as  I  do,  I 
fancy,"  he  suggested.  "He  is  rather  hard  to  suppress. 
He'll  be  president  until  his  successor  is  elected — or  he'll 
know  all  the  reasons  why." 

"Well,  I  hope  you've  got  everything  straight  in  the 
option  business,"  said  Ford.  "If  there  is  so  much  as  a 
hair  displaced,  he  will  be  sure  to  find  it." 

"It  is  all  straight  enough,"  was  the  confident  re 
joinder.  "Only  I  had  to  bid  five  points  over  the  market 
on  odd  lots  of  the  stock.  I'm  not  sure,  but  I  think  the 
Transcontinental  people  got  wind  of  us  during  the  last 
day  or  two  and  bid  against  us." 

"But  you  have  safe  majorities  ?" 


THE    AUTOMATIC    AIR  79 

" Oh,  yes ;  we  are  all  in." 

"Good,"  said  Ford.  "That  puts  it  up  to  Mr.  Colbrith, 
at  all  events.  And  now,  while  we  have  a  clear  day  before 
us,  I  want  to  go  over  these  C.  P.  &  D.  terminal  contracts 
with  you.  Eight  here  in  Chicago  is  where  the  Trans 
continental  will  try  hardest  to  balk  us.  The  C.  P.  &  D. 
has  trackage  rights  to  the  elevators;  but  I  want  to  be 
sure  that  the  contracts  will  hold  water  under  a  transfer 
of  ownership." 

Subjected  to  legal  scrutiny,  the  contracts  promised  to 
be  defensible,  and  Ford  came  through  the  day  with  his 
apprehensive  burdens  considerably  lightened.  After  din 
ner  he  took  his  papers  to  Kenneth's  room,  and  together 
they  went  carefully  over  all  the  legal  points  involved  in 
the  welding  of  the  three  local  lines  into  the  Pacific 
Southwestern  system,  Ford  furnishing  the  data  gathered 
by  him  during  the  four  days. 

Kenneth  was  shrewdly  inquisitive,  as  his  responsibili 
ties  constrained  him  to  be,  and  it  was  deep  in  the  small 
hours  when  Ford  made  his  escape  and  went  to  bed.  By 
consequence,  he  was  scarcely  more  than  half  awake  the 
next  morning,  when  he  dressed  hurriedly  and  hastened 
over  to  the  Van  Buren  Street  station  to  see  if  the  presi 
dent's  car  had  arrived. 

The  Nadia  was  in  and  side-tracked,  with  a  sleepy 
porter  on  guard.  Ford  climbed  to  the  platform  and 
asked  for  the  president. 


8Q  EMPIKE    BUILDERS 

"Yas,  suh;  dis  is  Mr.  Colbrith's  cyar;  but  he  don't 
see  no  newspapuh  men — no,  suh.  Besides,  dey's  just 
gettin'  up/'  was  the  rebuff ;  but  Ford  ignored  it. 

"  'They  ?'  Then  Mr.  Colbrith  isn't  alone  ?" 

"No,  suh ;  got  a  pahty  'long  with  him — a  young  gen 
tleman  and  two  ladies;  yes,  suh.  Mr.  Colbrith  nebber 
goes  nowhah's  'dout  he  teks  a  pahty  in  de  cyar." 

"Heavens!"  groaned  Ford,  under  his  breath;  "as  if 
the  thing  wasn't  complicated  enough  without  making 
a  picnic  of  it!"  Then  aloud.  "I  wish  to  go  in.  My 
name  is  Ford,  and  Mr.  Colbrith  is  expecting  me." 

"Sho'  you  isn't  a  newspapuh  man  ?" 

"Of  course  not,"  said  Ford  shortly. 

"All  right,  suh,"  said  the  negro;  and  he  made  way 
and  opened  the  door. 

The  Nadia  was  a  commodious  hotel  on  wheels,  with  a 
kitchen  and  buffet  forward,  four  state-rooms  opening 
upon  a  narrow  side  vestibule,  and  a  large  dining  and 
lounging  room  looking  out  through  full-length  win 
dows  upon  a  deep,  "umbrella-roofed"  platform  at  the 
rear. 

There  was  no  one  in  the  large  compartment  when 
Ford  reached  it ;  but  a  moment  later  a  door  opened  and 
closed  in  the  vestibule,  and  Adair  made  his  appearance. 
Ford  drew  a  breath  of  relief  and  shook  hands  with  his 
backer. 

"I'm  glad  it's  you,  Mr.  Adair.   I've  been  scenting  all 


THE   AUTOMATIC    AIR  81 

sorts  of  hindrances  since  the  porter  told  me.  there  was  a 
party  aboard." 

The  young  man  without  an  avocation  dropped  into 
the  easiest  of  the  wicker  chairs  and  felt  in  his  pockets 
for  his  cigarette  case. 

"Your  prophetic  soul  didn't  deceive  you  any,"  he 
laughed.  "The  hindrances  are  here  in  full  force.  It  is 
one  of  Uncle  Sidney's  notions  never  to  travel  without 
a  tail  like  a  Highland  chieftain's.  I  had  a  foreboding 
that  he'd  ask  somebody,  so  I  took  it  upon  myself  to  fill 
up  his  passenger  list  with  Aunt  Hetty,  my  sister,  and 
my  uncle's  nephew." 

"I  understand,"  said  Ford,  and  would  have  plunged 
forthwith  into  the  business  pool ;  but  Adair  stopped  him 
with  a  gesture  of  dismay. 

"Not  before  breakfast,  if  you  love  me,  my  dear  fel 
low  !"  he  protested,  with  a  little  grimace  that  instantly 
set  the  reminiscent  part  of  Ford's  brain  at  work.  "After 
I've  had  something  to  eat — " 

The  interruption  was  the  noiseless  entrance  of  a 
motherly  little  lady  in  gray,  with  kindly  eyes  and  a 
touch  of  silver  in  the  fair  hair  drawn  smoothly  back 
from  her  forehead. 

"This  is  Mr.  Stuart  Ford,  I  am  sure,"  she  said,  giv 
ing  her  hand  to  the  young  engineer  before  Adair  could 
introduce  him.  "You  look  enough,  like  your  father  to 
make  me  recognize  you  at  once." 


83  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

Ford  was  a  little  embarrassed  by  the  gratefully  in 
formal  greeting. 

"Ought  I  to  remember  you,  Mrs.  Adair?"  he  asked 
ingenuously. 

"Oh,  no,  indeed.  I  knew  your  father  as  a  young  man 
before  he  married  and  went  to  the  farther  West.  The 
Fords  and  the  Colbriths  and  the  Stanbrooks  are  all  from 
the  same  little  town  in  central  Illinois,  you  know." 

"I  didn't  know  it,"  said  Ford,  "though  now  I  recall 
it,  I  used  often  to  hear  my  father  speak  of  Miss  Hester 
Stanbrook."  Then  he  was  going  on  to  say  that  trite 
thing  about  the  smallness  of  the  world  when  Adair  broke 
in. 

"I'd  like  to  know  what  is  keeping  Uncle  Sidney  and 
Alicia.  /  haven't  had  breakfast  yet." 

As  if  his  protest  had  evoked  her,  a  young  woman  drew 
the  portiere  of  the  vestibule — a  young  woman  with 
bright  brown  hair,  eyes  like  dewy  wood  violets,  and  an 
adorable  chin.  Ford  stared  helplessly,  and  Adair 
laughed. 

"Shocked,  aren't  you?"  he  jested.  "But  you  needn't 
be  alarmed.  I  have  persuaded  my  sister  not  to  prosecute 
in  the  case  of  the  snatched  purse.  Alicia,  this  is  Mr. 
Stuart  Ford,  and  he  desires  me  to  say  that  he  is  not 
often  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  robbing  unprotected 
young  women  for  the  sake  of  scraping  an  acquaintance." 

Ford  lost  sight  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern  exigencies 


THE    AUTOMATIC    AIR  83 

for  tKe  moment.,  and  surely  the  lapse  was  pardonable. 
If  the  truth  must  be  told,  this  young  woman,  who  had 
been  discovered  and  lost  in  the  same  unforgetable  even 
ing,  had  stirred  the  neglected  pool  of  sentiment  in  him 
to  its  profoundest  depths,  and  thoughts  of  her  had  been 
dividing  time  pretty  evenly  with  some  parts  of  the 
strenuous  business  affair.  Indeed,  the  hopelessness  of 
any  effort  toward  rediscovering  her  had  been  one  of  his 
reasons  for  hurrying  away  from  New  York.  He  knew 
himself — a  little — and  that  quality  of  unreasoning  per 
sistence  which  other  people  called  his  strong  point.  The 
search  he  had  been  half -minded  to  make  once  begun — 

"I  hope  you  haven't  forgotten  me  so  soon,  Mr.  Ford," 
she  was  saying ;  and  he  recovered  himself  with  a  start, 

"Forgotten  you?  No,  indeed!" — this  with  almost 
lover-like  emphasis.  "I — I  think  I  am  just  a  trifle  aghast 
at  my  good  luck  in  finding  you  again.  It  seemed  so  ut 
terly  hopeless,  you  know.  Don't  you  think — " 

But  now  the  president  had  stalked  in,  and  his  high 
querulous  voice  was  marshaling  the  party  breakf astward. 
Ford  maneuvered  skilfully  in  the  pairing  off,  and  so 
succeeded  in  securing  Miss  Adair  for  a  companion  on 
the  short  walk  across  to  the  Grand  Pacific. 

"You  were  about  to  ask  me  something  when  Uncle 
Sidney  interrupted  you,"  she  prompted,  when  they  were 
clear  of  the  throng  in  the  station  vestibule. 

"Yes ;  I  was  going  to  ask  if  you  don't  think  it  was  un- 


84  EMPIRE   BUILDEES 

necessarily  cruel  to  send  me  that  note  of  thanks  un 
signed." 

"Cruel  ?"  she  echoed,  and  her  laugh  was  so  exactly  a 
replica  of  her  brother's  that  Ford  wondered  why  the 
reminiscent  arrow  had  not  gone  at  once  to  its  mark. 
"How  absurd  !  What  possible  difference  could  it  make?" 

"It  made  a  lot  of  difference  to  me/'  said  Ford,  refus 
ing  to  be  brushed  aside.  "How  did  you  expect  I  was 
ever  going  to  be  able  to  find  you  again,  without  even 
your  name  as  a  clue  ?" 

She  glanced  up  at  him  with  unfeigned  interest.  The 
men  of  her  world  were  not  altogether  unappreciative ; 
neither  were  they  so  primitively  straightforward  as  this 
young  industry  captain  out  of  the  West. 

"It  is  not  impossible  that  I  never  thought  of  your 
finding  me  again,"  she  said,  and  only  the  tone  saved  it 
from  being  a  small  slap  in  the  face. 

Ford  took  the  rebuff  as  a  part  of  the  day's  work. 

"Perhaps  you  didn't,"  he  admitted.  "But  I  mean  to 
go  on  hoping  that  you  did." 

"The  idea!"  she  scoffed;  but  this  time  she  blunted 
the  keen  edge  of  the  rebuke  by  adding :  "I  thought,  per 
haps,  we  might  meet  again,  sometime.  You  see,  we  are 
all  stock-holders  in  the  Pacific  Southwestern;  my 
brother,  Aunt  Hetty  and  I;  and  Uncle  Sidney  had 
shown  us  a  letter — it  was  from  Mr.  North,  I  think — 
saying  that  you  were  likely  to  come  to  New  York  with 


THE   AUTOMATIC    AIR  85. 

some  kind  of  a  plan  of  reorganization.  So  when  you  gave 
me  your  card,  I  knew  at  once  who  you  were." 

Ford  made  an  immediate  mental  note  of  the  bit  of  in 
formation  implicating  Mr.  North,  but  did  not  allow  him 
self  to  be  diverted  by  the  business  affair. 

"Yes,  I  know ;  but  that  didn't  help  me  a  little  bit/' 
he  protested,  wishing  that  the  distance  to  the  hotel  were 
twice  as  far. 

"That  was  just  because  it  happened  so ;  you  ran  away 
before  my  brother  had  a  chance  to  offer  you  any  hos 
pitality,"  she  explained.  Then,  before  he  could  say  any 
more  straightforward  things:  "Tell  me,  Mr.  Ford;  are 
you  really  going  to  find  something  to  interest  brother  ? 
— something  that  will  keep  him  actually  and  enthusi 
astically  busy  for  more  than  a  few  days  at  a  time?" 

Ford  laughed.  "I  fancy  he  hasn't  been  bored  for  the 
lack  of  work  since  I  left  New  York,  has  he  ?" 

"No ;  and  it  has  made  such  a  difference !  Won't  you 
please  try  and  keep  him  going  ?" 

"You  may  rest  assured  that  I  shall  do  what  I  can. 
But  you  see  he  has  quit  already." 

"By  coming  to  Chicago  with  us?  Oh,  no,  indeed; 
you  are  quite  mistaken.  He  is  here  to  help  you  to — to 
'minimize'  Uncle  Sidney;  I  think  that  is  the  word  he 
used.  He  was  afraid  you  had  been  finding  Uncle  Sidney 
rather  difficult.  Have  you?" 

"I  have,  for  a  fact,"  said  Ford,  out  of  the  depths  of 


86  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

sincerity.  And,  again  out  of  a  full  heart:  "Your 
brother  is  a  brick,  Miss  Adair." 

"Isn't  he?"  and  she  laughed  in  sheer  good  comrade 
ship.  "If  yon  can  only  manage  to  make  him  rise  to  his 
capabilities — " 

"He'll  never  be  able  to  live  the  simple  life  for  a 
single  waking  hour/'  said  the  engineer,  finishing  the 
sentence  for  her. 

"Oh,  but  that  is  a  mistake !"  she  objected.  "The  very 
first  requirement  is  work;  plenty  of  work  of  the  kind 
one  can  do  best." 

The  short  walk  to  the  hotel,  where  Kenneth  was  wait 
ing  to  go  to  breakfast  with  the  president's  party,  came 
to  an  end,  and  the  social  amenities  died  of  inanition. 
For  one  thing,  President  Colbrith  insisted  upon  learn 
ing  the  minutest  ins  and  outs  of  the  business  matter, 
making  the  table-talk  his  vehicle ;  and  for  another,  Miss 
Adair's  place  was  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  table,  and 
two  removes  from  Ford's.  Time  and  again  the  young 
engineer  tried  to  side-track  business  in  the  interests  of 
something  a  little  less  banal  to  the  two  women ;  but  the 
president  was  implacable  and  refused  to  be  pulled  out  of 
the  narrow  rut  of  details;  was  still  running  monot 
onously  and  raspingly  in  it  when  Kenneth  glanced  at  his 
watch  and  suggested  that  the  time  for  action  was  come. 

After  breakfast  the  party  separated.  Mrs.  Adair  and 
Miss  Alicia  were  to  spend  the  day  with  friends  in  South 


THE    AUTOMATIC    AIR  87 

Chicago,  and  Mr.  Colbrith  carried  the  attorney  off  to 
his  room  to  dig  still  deeper  into  the  possible  legal  com 
plications  which  might  arise  out  of  the  proposed  trans 
fer  of  the  three  short  roads.  Ford  and  Adair  sat  in  the 
lobby  and  smoked  while  they  were  waiting  for  the  presi 
dent  and  the  general  counsel  to  conclude  their  confer 
ence.,  and  the  young  millionaire  gave  his  companion  the 
story  of  the  fight  in  the  directory. 

"We  have  Brewster  to  thank  for  the  lift  which  finally 
pulled  our  wheel  out  of  the  mud/'  said  the  young  man, 
modestly  effacing  himself  in  the  summing  up.  "Or 
rather  I  should  say  that  we  have  the  enemy  to  thank  for 
stirring  Brewster  into  action.  Brewster's  got  some  cop 
per  mines  out  in  Utah  that  he  nurses  like  a  sick  child. 
Just  at  the  critical  moment  some  of  the  people  who  con 
trol  the  Transcontinental  began  to  worry  his  copper 
stock.  In  the  hot  part  of  it  he  came  to  me  and  said, 
'Adair,  will  that  western  extension  of  yours  be  able  to 
fry  any  fat  out  of  Transcontinental?'  I  told  him  it 
would,  most  assuredly;  that  next  to  making  money  for 
ourselves,  and,  incidentally,  saving  the  Pacific  South 
western  from  going  smash,  our  chief  object  was  to  give 
the  Transcontinental  a  wholesome  drubbing." 

"You  are  progressing  rapidly,"  said  Ford,  with  a  grin 
of  appreciation.  "Did  that  fetch  him  ?" 

"It  did,  for  a  fact.  He  looked  like  one  of  those  old 
bush}^-bearded  vikings  when  he  said,  'By  thunder,  I'm 


88  EMPIEB    BUILDEES 

with  you,  young  man!  And  I'll  answer  for  Scott  and 
Magnus  and  Harding.  Get  your  board  together,  and 
we'll  settle  it  to-day." 

Ford  looked  up  quickly.  "If  Mr.  Colbrith  wasn't  the 
chief  of  your  family  clan,  Adair,  I  could  wish  that  we 
had  this  Mr.  Brewster  at  the  head  of  things." 

The  rejoinder  was  heartily  prompt.  "You  don't  wish 
it  any  more  fervently  than  I  do,  Ford.  That  is  why  I 
am  here  to-day.  The  board,  in  spite  of  all  that  our  hand 
ful  of  revolutionaries  could  do,  has  armed  Uncle  Sidney 
with  almost  dictatorial  powers  in  this  stock-purchasing 
deal;  and  if  he  doesn't  contrive  to  strangle  things  by 
the  slow  process,  it  will  be  simply  and  solely  because 
you  and  Kenneth  and  I  are  here  to  see  that  he  does  not. 
Do  you  know  what  the  men  call  him  out  on  the  main 
line?  When  they  see  the  Nadia  trundling  in,  they  say, 
'Here  comes  old  Automatic  Air-Brakes.'  And  it  fits 
him." 

"But  I  don't  quite  understand  why  he  should  want  to 
put  the  brakes  on  here  and  now,"  Ford  interposed.  "I 
know  he  is  against  the  scheme,  personally;  but  he  is 
here  as  the  representative  of  a  majority  which  has  com 
mitted  itself  to  the  expansion  measure,  isn't  he  ?" 

"Oh,  yes ;  and  he  has  no  thought  of  playing  the  trai 
tor — you  mustn't  think  that  of  him.  But  it  isn't  in  his 
nature  to  facilitate  things.  In  the  present  crisis  he  will 
feel  that  he  is  personally  responsible  for  the  expenditure 


THE    AUTOMATIC    AIR  89 

of  five  million  dollars.  He  will  examine  and  investigate, 
and  probe  and  pry,  and  will  want  to  worry  through 
every  pen-scratch  which  has  been  made  up  to  date." 

"Well,  there  is  one  comfort;  he  can't  take  much  time 
for  his  worrying,"  said  Ford.  "Some  of  the  options  ex 
pire  to-morrow  noon." 

Adair  sat  up  as  one  who  suddenly  takes  notice. 

"What? — to-morrow?  Land  of  glory!  but  you  two 
fellows  took  short  chances !  Why,  any  little  hitch — " 

"I  know,"  said  the  engineer  evenly.  "But  we  took 
what  wre  could  get — and  were  thankful.  Somebody  was 
bidding  against  us,  and  prices  began  to  jump.  Inciden 
tally,  I  may  say  that  Kenneth  deserves  to  be  made  a 
vice-president  of  the  new  company,  at  the  very  least.  He 
has  done  ten  men's  work  in  the  last  three  or  four  days." 

"I  don't  doubt  it.  Neither  do  I  suspect  you  of  loafing. 
For  that  matter,  I've  been  hustling  a  few  lines,  myself, 
since  I  sent  you  that  first  telegram." 

"Do  you  find  it  exciting  enough  to  keep  you  inter 
ested,  as  far  as  you've  gone?"  inquired  Ford,  mindful 
of  Miss  Alicia's  longings. 

"It's  the  best  yet,"  declared  the  idler.  "Only,  you 
mustn't  lean  too  heavily  on  me,  you  know.  Fin  the  most 
uncertain  quantity  you  ever  experienced.  But  here  comes 
Uncle  Sidney,  with  a  cowed  and  brow-beaten  Kenneth 
in  tow — say  your  prayers,  and  get  ready  for  the  battle 
royal." 


IX 


THE  RACE  TO   THE   SLOW 

Adair's  prophecy  that  President  Colbrith  would  prove 
himself  an  obstructor  of  the  stubbornest  was  amply  ful 
filled  during  the  short  interval  which  remained  for  de 
cisive  action.  Truly,  in  the  battle  for  business  celerity 
the  odds  were  three  to  one  against  Mr.  Colbrith;  yet 
the  three  were  as  those  who  buffet  the  wind.  The  presi 
dent  must  see  and  feel,  know  and  fully  understand;  and 
at  the  very  last  moment,  when  the  shortest  of  the  options 
had  no  more  than  an  hour  to  live,  he  was  proposing  to 
summon  General  Manager  North  from  Denver  to  make 
a  fifth  in  the  council  of  discord. 

It  was  Ad  air  who  took  the  bull  by  the  horns  when  the 
president's  caution  was  about  to  turn  victory  into  defeat. 
What  was  said  or  done  after  the  young  man  drew  Mr. 
Colbrith  into  the  private  committee-room  at  the  bank 
and  shut  the  door,  Ford  and  Kenneth,  who  were  ex 
cluded,  could  only  surmise.  But  whatever  was  done  was 
well  done.  When  the  two,  uncle  and  nephew,  came  out 

90 


THE    RACE   TO    THE    SLOW,  91 

of  the  room  of  privacy,  the  old  man  was  shaking  his 
head  and  the  young  one  was  smiling  serenely.  So  it 
came  about  that  between  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock,  when 
Ford,  grimly  battling  to  the  last,  fought  as  one  without 
hope,  a  few  strokes  of  the  pen  opened  the  doors  upon  the 
new  creation ;  five  million  dollars,  more  or  less,  changed 
hands,  and  the  Pacific  Southwestern  took  the  long  leap 
eastward  from  the  Missouri  River  to  its  new  base  in 
Chicago. 

"It's  you  for  the  hustle  now,  Ford,"  said  Adair,  link 
ing  arms  with  the  engineer  when  the  quartet  left  the 
bank.  "How  soon  do  you  think  you  can  get  that  first 
train-load  of  grain  in  transit?" 

"I  wish  I  could  tell  you,"  said  Ford. 

"Why  can't  you?" 

"Because  it  will  depend  very  largely  upon  the  author 
ity  Mr.  Colbrith  or  the  board  sees  fit  to  give  me.  At 
present,  you  will  remember,  I  am  still  only  a  division 
superintendent — Mr.  North's  subordinate,  in  fact, 
and—" 

"Say  it  out  loud,"  encouraged  Adair. 

"I  don't  like  to,  but  I  suppose  it  can't  be  helped.  Up 
to  now  I  have  been  acting  under  special  orders,  as  you 
may  say,  in  a  purely  financial  transaction.  But  my  com 
mission  expired  five  minutes  ago  when  the  stock  deal 
went  through.  When  it  comes  to  issuing  orders  in  the 
operating  and  transportation  department,  I  have  no  au- 


92  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

thority  whatever.  Mr.  North  is  general  manager,  and  I 
suppose  his  jurisdiction  will  now  be  extended  to  cover 
the  new  line,  won't  it  ?" 

"Not  much  I"  retorted  the  amateur  promoter.  "You 
are  going  to  be  given  a  free  hand  in  this  from  the  word 
go.  From  what  I  can  learn,  North  has  been  an  ob- 
structor,  all  along,  hasn't  he  ?" 

"I  can't  say  that,"  said  Ford,  just,  even  to  an  enemy. 
"To  be  right  honest  about  it,  I  shall  have  to  confess  that 
I  slurred  him  entirely — went  over  his  head." 

"For  good  reasons,  no  doubt,  only  you  are  too  chari 
table  to  give  them.  Never  mind :  as  I  say,  you  are  going 
to  have  a  free  hand.  This  is  your  pie  and  nobody  else 
is  going  to  cut  it  for  you."  And  when  the  party  reached 
the  hotel  there  was  another  conference  of  two  behind 
closed  doors,  in  which  Ford  and  the  general  counsel  did 
not  participate. 

An  hour  later,  when  Adair  came  down  from  the  presi 
dent's  room,  he  thrust  a  sheaf  of  penciled  printers'  copy 
into  Ford's  hands. 

"There  you  are,"  he  said.  "I've  done  the  best  I  could 
for  you  on  such  short  notice — with  Uncle  Sidney  trying 
his  level  best  to  get  a  cross  reference  to  the  board  before 
taking  action.  Get  these  circulars  through  a  print  shop 
and  into  the  mails.  You'll  see  that  one  of  them  announces 
your  appointment,  effective  to-day,  as  Assistant  to  the 
President.  That  was  as  far  as  Uncle  Sidney  could  be 


THE   RACE    TO    THE    SLOW  93 

dragged.  It  doesn't  give  you  a  straight  flush ;  but  your 
hand  will  beat  North's  if  it  comes  to  a  show-down  be 
tween  you.  Just  the  same,  I  shouldn't  quarrel  with 
North,  if  I  were  you.  Uncle  Sidney  thinks  the  sun  rises 
and  sets  in  him." 

Ford  nodded,  and  while  he  was  reading  hastily 
through  the  sheaf  of  pencilings  a  boy  brought  him  a  tele 
gram.  When  he  opened  the  envelope,  Kenneth  had 
turned  away.  But  Adair  was  looking  on,  and  he  did  not 
fail  to  remark  the  startling  effect  of  the  few  typewritten 
words  upon  the  engineer. 

"Whereabouts  does  it  hit  us  this  time  ?"  he  inquired, 
lighting  a  fresh  cigarette. 

"In  the  neck,"  said  Ford  curtly.  "The  possibility  oc 
curred  to  me  yesterday — Pacific  Southwestern  stock  be 
ing  so  badly  scattered  among  small  holders.  I  wired  a 
broker,  a  good  friend  of  mine,  to  pick  up  a  few  shares 
on  my  account.  Here  is  what  he  says :  'Market  bone  dry. 
No  offerings  of  P.  S-W.  at  any  price.'  * 

Adair  whistled  softly.  "That's  getting  next  to  us  with 
a  vengeance !"  he  commented.  "And  it  can  be  done,  too. 
Half  a  dozen  of  the  small  stock-holders  have  been  to  me 
since  the  fire  was  lighted,  trying  to  get  me  to  take  their 
stock  at  market." 

"How  much  do  we  control — that  we  are  sure  of?" 
Ford  asked. 

"I  don't  know — in  figures.  Not  more  than  two-fifths, 


94  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

I  should  say.  At  the  last  board  meeting  I  proposed  that 
we  make  a  safe  majority  pool  among  ourselves,  but 
Uncle  Sidney  sat  on  me.  Said  his  own  personal  constitu 
ency  among  the  little  people  was  big  enough  amply  to 
secure  us/' 

Ford  swore  pathetically. 

"The  one  single  instance  when  his  caution  might  have 
steered  him  straight — and  it  went  to  sleep  I"  he  raged. 

"Exactly/'  laughed  Adair.  "And  now  the  Transcon 
tinental  moguls  are  buying  up  a  majority  of  their  own, 
meaning  to  capture  the  main-line  dog  and  leaving  us  to 
wag  the  extension  tail  which  we  have  just  acquired.  Say, 
Ford ;  doesn't  that  appeal  to  your  sense  of  humor  ?" 

"No,  it  doesn't,"  said  Ford  savagely.  To  see  one's  air- 
castles  crumbling  at  the  very  moment  when  they  were 
to  be  transmuted  into  solid  realities  is  apt  to  provoke  a 
reversion  to  type ;  and  Ford's  type  was  Gothic. 

"That's  a  pity,"  said  Adair,  absently  rolling  his  cig 
arette  between  his  thumb  and  finger.  "Also,  it's  another 
pity  that  I  am  such  a  hopeless  quitter.  I  believe  I  could 
pull  this  thing  out  yet,  if  I  could  only  get  up  sufficient 
steam." 

"For  heaven's  sake,  tell  me  what  you  burn,  and  I'll 
furnish  the  fuel,"  said  Ford  desperately. 

"Will  you?  I  guess  I  need  something  pretty  inflam 
matory." 

"Lord  of  love !  haven't  you  good  and  plenty,  without 


THE    EACE    TO    THE    SLOW  95 

calling  upon  me  ?  Are  you  going  to  let  these  stock-job 
bing  land-pirates  on  'Change  gibbet  you  as  a  solemn 
warning  to  aspiring  young  promoters  ?" 

Adair  paused  with  the  cigarette  half  way  to  his  lips. 
"Ah,"  he  said,  after  a  thoughtful  moment.  "Perhaps 
that  was  what  I  needed.  No;  they  will  not  gibbet  any 
of  us  to-day;  and  possibly  not  to-morrow."  Then,  with 
a  sudden  dropping  of  the  mask  of  easy-going  indiffer 
ence:  "Give  me  the  key  to  your  room,  and  find  me  a 
swift  stenographer.  Then  go  over  to  the  Lake  Shore 
headquarters  and  ask  to  have  the  Nadia  coupled  to  the 
evening  train  for  New  York." 

"But  the  president?"  Ford  began.  "Didn't  he  say 
something  about  going  over  these  new  lines  on  an  in 
spection  trip  ?" 

"Never  mind  Uncle  Sidney:  on  this  one  occasion  he 
will  change  his  plans  and  go  back  to  New  York  with  us," 
said  Adair  curtly. 

"Good,"  said  Ford  approvingly.  "And  how  about 
opening  the  new  through  line  for  business?  Do  we  go 
on?  Or  do  we  hang  it  up  until  we  find  out  where  we 
are'at'?" 

"Don't  hold  it  up  a  single  minute.  Drive  it  for  all 
the  power  you  can  get  behind  it.  If  we  have  to  collide 
with  things,  let's  do  it  with  the  throttle  wide  open.  Now 
find  me  that  shorthand  person  quickly,  will  you  ?" 

By  what  means  the  president  was  persuaded  or  co- 


96  EMPIEE   BUILDEES 

erced  into  doing  the  thing  he  had  not  planned  to  do, 
Ford  was  not  to  know.  But  for  that  matter,  after  carry 
ing  out  Adair's  instructions  the  engineer  plunged  at 
once  into  his  own  Herculean  task  of  reorganization, 
emerging  only  when  he  made  a  tardy  sixth  at  the  presi 
dent's  dinner  table  in  the  hotel  cafe  in  the  evening. 

The  dinner,  which  the  young  engineer  had  been  fondly 
counting  upon  as  a  momentary  relaxation  from  the 
heart-breaking  business  strain,  was  a  dismal  failure  on 
its  social  side.  President  Colbrith,  as  yet,  it  appeared, 
in  blissful  ignorance  of  the  latest  news  from  New  York, 
had  reserved  the  seat  of  honor  for  his  new  assistant,  and 
the  half-hour  was  filled  to  overflowing  with  minute  and 
cautionary  definitions  of  the  assistant's  powers  and 
duties. 

Ford  listened  with  a  blank  ear  on  that  side.  There 
was  work  to  do,  and  one  man  to  do  it.  He  did  not  care 
particularly  to  hear  instructions  which  he  would  prob 
ably  have  to  disregard  at  the  first  experimental  dash  into 
the  new  field.  He  meant  to  hold  himself  rigidly  to  ac 
count  for  results;  more  than  this  he  thought  not  even 
Mr.  Colbrith  had  a  right  to  require. 

After  dinner  he  indemnified  himself  for  the  kinder 
garten  lecture  by  boldly  taking  possession  of  Miss  Adair 
for  the  short  walk  over  to  the  private  car.  The  entire 
world  of  work  was  still  ahead,  and  a  corps  of  expert 
stenographers  was  at  the  moment  awaiting  his  return  to 


THE    RACE    TO    THE    SLOW  97 

the  C.  P.  '&  D.  offices,  where  he  had  established  tempo 
rary  headquarters;  but  he  shut  the  door  upon  the  exi 
gencies  and  listened  to  Miss  Alicia. 

O 

"I  am  so  sorry  we  are  not  going  to  be  here  to  see  your 
triumph/'  she  was  saying;  adding:  "It  is  a  triumph, 
isn't  it?" 

"Only  a  beginning/'  he  amended.  "And  it  won't  be 
spectacular,  if  we  can  help  it.  Besides,  this  east-end 
affair  is  only  a  preliminary.  A  little  later  on,  if  our 
tackle  doesn't  break,  we  shall  land  the  really  big  fish  for 
which  this  is  only  the  bait." 

"Shall  you  never  be  satisfied?"  she  asked  jestingly. 
And  then,  more  seriously :  "What  is  your  ambition  ?  To 
be  able  to  buy  what  your  neighbor  can  not  afford  ?" 

"Big  money,  you  mean  ?  No,  I  think  not.  But  I  like 
to  win,  as  well  as  other  men." 

"To  win  what?" 

"Whatever  seems  worth  winning — this  fight,  in  the 
present  instance,  and  the  consequent  larger  field.  Later, 
enough  money  to  enable  me  to  think  of  money  only  as  a 
stepping-stone  to  better  things.  Later  still,  perhaps — " 

He  stopped  abruptly,  as  though  willing  to  leave  the 
third  desideratum  in  the  air,  but  she  would  not  let  him. 

"Go  on,"  she  said.  "Last  of  all?" 

"Last  of  all,  the  love  of  a  true  woman." 

^Oh !"  she  scoffed,  with  a  little  uptilt  of  the  admirable 
chin.  "Then  love  must  come  trailing  along  at  the  very 


98  EMPIEE    BUILDERS 

end,  after  we  have  skimmed  the  cream  from  all  the  other 
milk  pans  in  orderly  succession." 

"No,"  he  rejoined  gravely.  "I  put  it  clumsily — as  I 
snatch  purses.  As  a  matter  of  sober  fact,,  love  sets  the 
mile-stones  along  any  human  road  that  is  worth  travers- 
ing." 

She  glanced  up  at  him  and  the  blue  eyes  were  dancing. 
Miss  Alicia  Adair  knew  no  joy  to  compare  with  that  of 
teasing,  and  it  was  not  often  that  the  fates  gave  her  such 
a  pliable  subject. 

"Tell  me,  Mr.  Ford;  is— is  she  pretty?" 

"She  is  beautiful;  the  most  beautiful  woman  in  the 
world,  Miss  Adair." 

"How  fine !  And,  of  course,  she  is  a  paragon  of  all  the 
virtues? — an  angel  without  the  extremely  inconvenient 
wings?" 

"You  have  said  it :  and  I  have  never  doubted  it  from 
the  moment  I  first  laid  eyes  on  her." 

"Better  and  better,"  she  murmured.  Then :  "She  has 
money  ?" 

"I  suppose  she  has ;  yes,  she  certainly  has  money.  But 
that  doesn't  make  any  difference — to  her  or  to  me." 

"It  is  simply  idyllic!"  was  the  ecstatic  comment. 
"After  all  this  there  remains  but  one  other  possible  con 
tingency.  Has  she  a  willing  mind,  Mr.  Ford  ?" 

They  had  reached  the  steps  of  the  Nadia,  and  the 
others  had  gone  within.  Ford  looked  soberly  into  the 


THE    RACE    TO    THE    SLOW  99 

depths  of  the  laughing  eyes  and  said :  "I  would  give  all 
my  chances  of  success  in  this  Pacific  Southwestern  affair 
to  be  able  to  say  'yes'  to  that/5 

The  station  gong  was  clanging  the  departure  signal 
for  the  New  York  train,  and  he  swung  her  lightly  up  to 
the  step  of  the  car. 

"Good-by/'  she  said,  turning  to  smile  down  upon  him. 
And  then,  "I  don't  believe  you,  you  know ;  not  the  least 
bit  in  the  world." 

"Why  don't  you  ?"  he  demanded. 

"Because  the  woman  doesn't  live  who  would  be  worth 
such  a  sacrifice  as  that  would  be — to  Mr.  Stuart  Ford." 

And  this  was  her  leave-taking. 


THE   SINEWS   OF  WAR 

The  general  offices  of  the  C.  P.  &  D.  Eailway  were 
crowded  into  a  half-dozen  utilitarian  rooms  on  the  sec 
ond  floor  of  the  company's  freight  station  building  in 
the  Chicago  yards.  In  two  of  these  rooms,  with  a  window 
outlook  upon  a  tangle  of  switching  tracks  with  their 
shifting  panorama  of  cars  and  locomotives,,  Ford  set  up 
his  standard  as  chief  executive  of  the  three  "annexed" 
roads,  becoming,  in  the  eyes  of  three  separate  republics 
of  minor  officials  and  employees,  the  arbiter  of  destiny. 

Naturally,  the  announcement  that  their  railroads  had 
been  swallowed  whole  by  the  Pacific  Southwestern  had 
fallen  as  a  thunderclap  upon  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
three  local  companies ;  and  since,  in  railway  practice,  a 
change  of  owners  usually  carries  with  it  a  sweeping 
change  in  department  heads,  the  service  was  instantly 
demoralized. 

During  the  first  few  hours  of  Ford's  administration, 
therefore,  the  wires  were  buzzing  with  hasty  resigna- 

100 


THE    SINEWS    OF    WAR  101 

tions;  and  those  whose  courage  w^is  i-o.t  svhatted  iq  tlie 
quitting  point  took  a  loose  hold  "upon-  their  dnti?.s;.and 
waited  to  see  what  would  happen.  •  tJncler '  sucli  chaotic 
conditions  Ford  took  his  seat  in  the  mean  little  office 
over  the  freight  station,  and  flung  himself  ardently  into 
the  task  of  bringing  order  out  of  the  sudden  confusion. 
Effectively  to  support  Adair  and  the  reconstructionists 
on  the  board  it  was  critically  necessary  that  there  be  im 
mediate  and  cheering  news  from  the  front. 

It  was  in  the  preliminary  wrestle  with  disintegration 
that  the  young  engineer's  gift  of  insight  and  his  faculty 
of  handling  men  as  men  stood  him  in  good  stead.  He 
was  fresh  from  his  trip  over  the  new  extension,  on  which 
he  had  met  and  shrewdly  appraised  the  men  who  were 
now  his  subordinates.  With  the  human  field  thus  men 
tally  mapped  and  cross-sectioned  he  was  enabled  to 
make  swift  and  sure  selections,  cutting  out  the  dead 
timber  remorselessly,  encouraging  the  doubtful,  reassur 
ing  the  timid,  assorting  and  combining  and  ordering 
until,  at  the  close  of  the  second  day  of  fierce  toil,  he  was 
ready  to  make  his  first  report  to  Adair. 


Track  connections  at  junction  points  completed  to-day. 
General  and  division  operating  and  traffic  departments  in 
the  saddle  and  effectively  organized.  With  proper  coopera 
tion  on  part  of  General  Manager  North,  grain  should  begin 
to  move  eastward  to-morrow.  Can  get  no  satisfactory  re 
plies  from  North.  Have  him  disciplined  from  your  end. 
Answer.  PoRD. 


102  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

To  this  telegram  there  was  a  prompt  and  voluminous 
reply  from  the  seat  of  war  in  the  East.  In  a  free  fight 
on  the?  Stock  Exchange,  a  battle  royal  generaled  by 
Brewster  and  Magnus  in  which  every  inch  of  ground 
had  been  sharply  contested  by  brokers  buying  up  P. 
S-W.  in  the  interest  of  principals  unnamed,  a  majority 
of  the  Southwestern  stock — safe  but  exceedingly  nar 
row — had  been  secured  by  the  reconstructionists. 

In  accordance  with  Ford's  suggestion,  North  had  been 
"called  down"  by  wire,  and  Ford  was  instructed  to  re 
port  instantly  any  failure  of  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
Denver  headquarters  to  set  the  grain  trains  in  motion. 

Otherwise,  and  from  the  New  York  point  of  view,  the 
situation  remained  most  hopeful.  The  fight  in  the  Street 
had  unified  the  factions  in  the  board  of  directors,  and 
even  the  timid  ones  were  beginning  to  clamor  for  an  ad 
vance  into  the  territory  of  the  enemy. 

Ford  read  Adair's  letter-length  and  most  unbusiness 
like  telegram  with  the  zest  of  the  fine  wine  of  triumph 
tingling  in  his  blood.  With  the  Chicago  outlet  fairly 
open  and  in  working  order,  and  a  huge  tributary  grain 
crop  to  be  moved,  it  should  be  only  a  matter  of  days 
until  the  depressed  Pacific  Southwestern  stock  would 
begin  to  climb  toward  the  bonding  figure. 

This  was  the  first  triumphant  conclusion,  but  after 
ward  came  reaction  and  a  depressive  doubt.  Would  the 
stock  go  up?  Or  would  the  enemy  devise  some  assault 


THE    SINEWS    OF    WAR  103 

that  would  keep  it  down  in  spite  of  the  money-earning, 
dividend-promising  facts  ?  Upon  the  expected  rise  hung 
the  fate  of  Ford's  cherished  ambition — the  building  of 
the  western  extension.  Without  a  dividend-paying  Chi 
cago-Denver  main  line,  there  could  be  no  bond  issue,  no 
thirty  millions  for  the  forging  of  the  third  and  most  im 
portant  link  in  the  great  traffic  chain. 

Ford  walked  the  floor  of  his  office,  called  by  courtesy, 
"private/'  for  an  anxious  hour,  balancing  the  probabili 
ties,  and  finally  determined  to  take  the  desperate  chance. 
There  was  a  vast  mountain  of  preliminary  work  to  be 
leveled,  huge  purchasing  expenses  to  be  incurred,  be 
fore  the  first  step  could  be  taken  in  the  actual  building 
of  the  western  extension ;  and  the  summer  was  advancing 
day  by  day.  He  did  not  hope  to  get  the  extension  com 
pleted  in  a  single  season.  But  to  get  it  over  into  the 
promising  mining  field  on  the  lower  Pannikin  before 
snow-flying  meant  work  of  the  keenest,  without  the  loss 
of  a  single  day.  Could  he  afford  to  play  the  safe  game 
and  wait  until  the  building  capital  should  be  cannily 
in  Mr.  Magnus'  bank  vaults  ? 

He  decided  that  he  could  not;  and  when  he  reached 
a  decision,  Ford  was  not  the  man  to  hesitate  before 
taking  the  plunge.  On  the  morning  of  the  third  day  he 
called  Truitt,  sometime  superintendent  of  the  C.  P.  & 
D.,  and  now  acting  manager  of  the  Chicago  Extension, 
and  gave  him  his  instructions. 


104:  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"You  say  there  are  three  grain  trains  moving  on  the 
line  now,  Mr.  Truitt:  there  will  be  three  more  before 
night.  Keep  them  coming,  and  give  them  the  right  of 
way  over  everything  but  the  United  States  mails.  Can 
you  handle  this  without  help  from  me?" 

"We'll  give  it  a  pretty  stiff  try/'  was  the  prompt  re 
joinder.  "But  you  are  not  going  to  leave  us,  are  you, 
Mr.  Ford?" 

"No;  but  for  the  next  forty-eight  hours  I  am  going 
to  lock  my  door,  and  I  don't  want  to  be  disturbed  for 
anything  less  than  a  disaster  or  a  wire  from  New  York. 
Please  give  orders  accordingly,  will  you?" 

The  orders  were  given;  and,  left  with  his  force  of 
stenographers,  Ford  began  to  walk  the  floor,  dictating 
right  and  left.  Letters  and  telegrams  to  steel  mills,  to 
contractors,  to  bridge  builders,  to  the  owners  of  grad 
ing  outfits,  and  to  labor  agencies,  clicked  out  of  the 
typewriters  in  a  steady  and  unbroken  stream,  and  the 
din  was  like  that  of  a  main-line  telegraph  office  on  a 
hot  piece  of  track. 

All  day  long,  and  far  into  the  night,  the  office  force 
wrought  unceasingly,  digging  away  at  the  mountain  of 
preliminary  correspondence;  and  by  the  next  morning 
the  wire  replies  were  beginning  to  come  in. 

Then  came  the  crux.  To  insure  prompt  delivery  of 
material,  definite  orders  must  be  placed  immediately. 
'A  delay  of  a  single  day  might  entail  a  delay  of  weeks 


THE    SINEWS    OF    WAR  105 

in  the  shipments.  Yet  the  risk  of  plunging  the  company 
into  debts  it  might  never  be  able  to  pay  was  appalling. 
What  if  the  stock  should  not  go  up  as  prefigured? — if 
the  bonds  could  not  be  floated  ? 

It  was  with  the  feeling  that  he  might  well  be  signing 
his  own  death-warrant  that  Ford  put  his  name  to  the 
first  order  for  two  hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
steel  rails  for  immediate  delivery  to  the  company's  line 
in  Chicago.  But  after  the  first  cold  submergence  it 
came  more  easily,  and  when  he  left  the  office  an  hour 
before  midnight,  a  cool  million  would  not  have  covered 
the  obligations  he  had  assumed  during  the  strenuous 
day. 

Kenneth  was  sitting  up  for  him  when  he  reached  his 
hotel,  and  the  usually  impassive  face  of  the  general 
counsel  reflected  trouble. 

"Out  with  it/'  said  Ford  wearily;  and  suddenly  the 
new  million  of  indebtedness  became  a  mountain  weight 
to  grind  him  to  powder. 

"We're  blocked,"  was  the  brief  announcement.  "Two 
of  the  grain  trains  are  in,  and  the  Transcontinental 
lawyers  have  won  the  toss.  We're  enjoined  by  the  court 
from  using  the  service  tracks  to  the  elevators.  Didn't 
your  local  people  tell  you  ?" 

"No,"  said  Ford.  "I  had  given  orders  that  I  was  not 
to  be  disturbed.  But  what  of  it?  You  expected  some 
thing  of  the  sort,  didn't  you  ?" 


106  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

"Yes;  and  I  provided  for  it.  The  injunction  will  be 
dissolved  when  we  have  our  final  hearing;  but  long  be 
fore  that  time  the  mischief  will  be  irreparable,  I'm 
afraid." 

"How?" 

"It  will  be  blazoned  far  and  wide  that  we  can't  de 
liver  the  goods — that  the  opposition  has  done  us  up. 
I've  tried  to  keep  it  out  of  the  newspapers,  or,  rather, 
to  persuade  them  not  to  make  too  much  of  it.  But  it 
wouldn't  go.  The  Transcontinental  has  all  the  pull  in 
this  town,  it  appears." 

"And  you  think  it  will  affect  the  price  of  the  stock  ?" 

"It  is  bound  to,  temporarily,  at  least.  And  coming 
upon  the  heels  of  to-day's  sudden  tumble — " 

"What's  that?"  demanded  Ford,  dry-lipped,  adding: 
"I  haven't  seen  a  paper  since  morning." 

Kenneth  wagged  his  head  gloomily.  "It's  pretty  bad. 
P.  S-W.  closed  at  thirty-three — five  points  off  yester 
day's  market." 

"Good  Lord !"  Ford's  groan  was  that  of  a  man  smit 
ten  down  in  the  heat  of  the  fight.  "Say,  Kenneth, 
within  a  single  sweep  of  the  clock-hands  I  have  con 
tracted  for  more  than  a  million  dollars'  worth  of  ma 
terial  for  the  western  extension — more  than  a  million 
dollars'  worth !" 

"Well,  I'm  afraid  you  have  sinned  in  haste  to  repent 
at  leisure,"  said  the  lawyer,  with  a  weary  man's  disre- 


THE    SINEWS    OF    WAR  107 

gard  for  the  amenities.   Then  he  added :   "I'm  going  to 
bed.  I've  had  about  all  I  can  stand  for  one  day." 

Ford  went  to  the  room  clerk  for  his  key;  reeled 
would  be  the  better  word,  since  his  brain  was  whirling. 
There  was  a  telegram  in  his  box,  and  he  tore  it  open  with 
fresh  and  sharper  misgivings.  It  was  from  Adair. 


The  sick  man's  getting  sicker.  What  is  the  matter  with 
your  prescription?  Stock  gone  off  five  points,  and  the  bears 
are  squeezing  us  to  beat  the  band.  Stories  flying  on  the 
Street  that  we  are  a  kite  without  an  effective  tail;  that  the 
courts  will  keep  us  out  of  the  elevators.  What  do  you  say? 


Ford  consulted  his  watch.  There  was  barely  time  to 
catch  the  midnight  train  for  New  York,  and  his  deter 
mination  was  taken  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  It  was 
all  or  nothing,  now. 

Hastily  writing  a  wire  to  the  cashier  of  the  Denver 
bank  where  he  kept  his  personal  account,  and  another  to 
Adair,  and  leaving  brief  notes  for  Kenneth  and  Truitt, 
he  took  a  cab  and  had  himself  driven  at  a  gallop  to  the 
Union  Station.  He  was  the  last  man  through  the  plat 
form  gates,  but  he  made  his  train,  and  was  settling 
himself  in  the  sleeper  when  another  telegram  was  thrust 
into  his  hand.  This  was  from  Frisbie,  at  Saint's  Rest ; 
and  that  it  brought  more  bad  news  might  be  argued 
from  the  way  in  which  he  crushed  it  slowly  in  his  hand 
and  jammed  it  into  his  pocket.  On  this  day,  if  never 


108  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

before,  he  was  proving  the  truth  of  the  old  adage  that 
misfortunes  do  not  come  singly. 

Upon  arriving  in  New  York  late  the  following  even 
ing,  he  had  himself  driven  to  the  Waldorf,  where  he 
found  Adair  waiting  for  him.  A  few  words  sufficed  to 
outline  the  situation,  which  the  lapse  of  another  day 
had  made  still  more  desperate.  So  far  from  recovering, 
the  falling  stock  had  dropped  to  twenty-nine  and  a  half, 
and  there  was  every  indication  that  the  bottom  was  not 
yet  reached. 

"How  do  you  account  for  it?"  asked  Ford,  when  the 
dismal  tale  had  been  told. 

"Oh,  it's  easy  enough,  when  you  know  how,"  was  the 
light-hearted  rejoinder.  "As  I  wired  you,  there  was 
something  of  a  scramble  on  the  floor  of  the  Exchange 
last  week  when  we  were  fighting  to  find  out  whether  we 
should  control  our  own  majority  or  let  the  Transconti 
nental  have  it.  Our  pool  got  its  fifty-one  per  cent,  all 
right,  but  in  the  nature  of  things  the  enemy  stood  as 
the  next  largest  stock-holder  in  P.  S-W.,  since  they'd 
been  buying  right  and  left  against  us.  Now,  since  we 
don't  need  any  more,  and  nobody  else  wants  it,  all  the 
Transcontinental  people  have  to  do  is  to  unload  on  the 
market,  and  down  she  goes." 

Ford  looked  incredulous,  and  then  wrathful. 

"Adair,  tell  me :  did  I  have  to  stop  my  work  when  my 
time  is  worth  fifty  dollars  a  minute,  and  come  all  the 


THE    SINEWS    OF    WAR  109 

way  to  New  York  to  tell  you  folks  what  to  do  ?"  he  de 
manded. 

Adair's  laugh  was  utterly  and  absolutely  care-free. 

"It  looks  that  way,  doesn't  it  ?  Have  you  got  the  com 
pelling  club  up  your  sleeve,  as  usual  ?" 

"A  boy  might  carry  it — and  swing  it,  too,"  was  the 
disgusted  answer.  "When  does  the  board  meet  again? 
Or  has  it  concluded  to  lie  down  in  the  harness  ?" 

"Oh,  it  gets  together  every  morning — got  the  meeting 
habit,  you  know.  Everybody's  in  a  blue  funk,  but  we 
still  have  the  daily  round-up  to  swap  funeral  statistics." 

"All  right.  Meet  me  here  in  the  morning,  and  we'll 
go  and  join  the  procession.  Can  you  make  it  nine 
o'clock?" 

"Sure.  It's  too  late  to  go  home,  and  I'll  stay  here. 
Then  you'll  be  measurably  certain  that  I  can't  escape. 
May  I  see  the  tip  end  of  the  club  ?" 

"No,"  said  Ford  grumpily.  "You  don't  deserve  it. 
Go  to  bed  and  store  up  a  head  of  steam  that  will  carry 
you  through  the  hardest  day's  work  you  ever  hoped  to 
do.  Good  night." 

They  met  again  at  the  breakfast-table  the  following 
morning,  and  Ford  talked  pointedly  of  everything  save 
the  P.  S-W.  predicament.  One  of  Adair's  past  fads  had 
been  the  collecting  of  odd  weapons;  Ford  discovered 
this  and  drew  the  young  man  skilfully  into  a  discussion 
of  the  medieval  secrets  of  sword-tempering. 


110  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

"I've  a  bit  of  the  old  Damascus,  myself,"  said  the 
engineer.  "Tybee — he  was  on  the  Joppa-Jerusalem 
road  in  the  building — picked  it  up  for  me.  Curious 
piece  of  old  steel;  figured  and  flowered  and  etched  and 
inlaid  with  silver.  There  were  jewels  in  the  pommel 
once,  I  take  it ;  the  settings  are  still  there  to  show  where 
some  practical-turned  vandal  dug  them  out/' 

Adair  was  quite  at  a  loss  to  guess  how  old  swords 
and  their  histories  could  bear  upon  the  financial  situa 
tion,  but  he  was  coming  to  know  Ford  better.  Some  one 
has  said  that  it  is  only  the  small  men  who  are  careful 
and  troubled  on  the  eve  of  a  great  battle.  So  the  talk 
was  of  ancient  weapons  until  the  time  for  action  ar 
rived;  and  a  smooth-faced  gentleman  sitting  at  a  near 
by  table  and  marked  down  by  Ford — though  not  by 
Ford's  companion — listened  for  some  word  of  enlighten 
ment  on  the  railroad  situation,  and  was  cruelly  disap 
pointed. 

"Why  wouldn't  you  talk?"  asked  Adair,  when  they 
were  driving  down-town  in  the  young  millionaire's  auto. 
"Or  rather,  why  did  you  persist  in  keeping  me  to  the 
old  swords  ?" 

Ford  laughed. 

"For  one  reason,  I  enjoy  the  old  swords — as  a  relaxa 
tion.  For  another,  Mr.  Jefiers  Hawley,  who  was  once 
one  of  the  Transcontinental  lawyers  in  Denver,  was  sit 
ting  just  behind  you,  with  eager  ears.  You  didn't  know 


THE    SINEWS    OF    WAR  111 

that.  Hold  on  a  minute;  tell  your  man  to  stop  at  the 
Chemical  Bank.  I  want  you  to  introduce  me  to  the 
cashier." 

"Now,  what  the  deuce  are  you  starting  a  New  York 
bank  account  for?"  queried  Adair,  as  they  came  out  of 
the  bank  together  and  climbed  into  the  tonneau  of  the 
waiting  touring  car.  "Couldn't  you  draw  on  the  treas 
urer  ?  What's  the  use  of  your  being  the  assistant  to  the 
president,  I'd  like  to  know  ?" 

"Wait,"  was  the  answer;  and  the  questioner  waited, 
perforce. 

The  board  was  already  in  session  when  the  two  young 
men  were  admitted  to  the  private  room  in  the  rear  of 
the  Broad  Street  offices,  and  Ford  was  welcomed  as  a 
man  who  has  recklessly  steered  the  ship  upon  the  rocks. 
There  were  even  some  open  recriminations,  notably  on 
the  part  of  the  president;  but  Ford  sat  quietly  under 
them,  making  no  defense,  and  folding  and  refolding  a 
slip  of  paper  in  his  fingers  as  he  listened. 

When  they  gave  him  leave  to  speak,  he  still  made  no 
attempt  to  explain.  Instead,  he  rose,  walked  to  the  other 
end  of  the  table,  and  tossed  the  bit  of  folded  paper 
across  to  Mackie,  the  broker. 

"I  inherited  a  little  money,  and  I  have  made  and 
saved  enough  more  to  make  it  an  even  twenty  thousand 
dollars,"  he  said.  "I  don't  know  of  any  more  promising 
investment  just  now  than  Pacific  Southwestern  at 


EMPIRE   BUILDERS 


twenty-nine  and  a  half.  Will  you  be  good  enough  to  buy 
for  my  account,  Mr.  Maekie  ?" 

The  effect  was  electrical.  President  Colbrith  sat  up 
very  straight  in  his  chair;  two  or  three  of  the  anxious 
ones  opened  on  Ford  with  a  rapid  fire  of  questions  ;  and 
Brewster,  the  copper  magnate,  sat  back  and  chuckled 
softly  in  his  beard. 

"No,  gentlemen;  there  is  no  change  in  the  situation, 
so  far  as  I  know.  Of  course,  you  are  not  so  foolish  as 
to  let  the  newspaper  talk  of  the  tie-up  at  the  Chicago 
elevators  influence  you,"  Ford  was  saying  to  the  anxious 
inquirers.  "And,  apart  from  that,  everything  is  going 
our  way.  As  I  have  remarked,  our  stock  at  the  present 
figure  is  good  enough  for  me,  and  I  only  wish  I  had  two 
hundred  thousand,  instead  of  twenty  thousand,  to  put 
into  it." 

Brewster  stopped  chuckling  long  enough  to  hold  up 
a  finger  to  the  broker.  "You  may  buy  for  my  account, 
too,  Mackie,  while  you  are  at  it  —  and  keep  on  buying 
till  I  tell  you  to  quit." 

This  broke  the  deadlock  instantly,  and  for  a  few  min 
utes  the  board  room  was  as  noisy  as  the  wheat  pit  with 
a  corner  threatening.  Brewster,  still  laughing  in  his 
beard,  pulled  Ford  out  of  the  press  at  the  broker's  end 
of  the  table. 

"I'm  going  to  ask  only  one  thing  of  you,  young  man," 
he  began,  his  shrewd  little  eyes  twinkling.  "Just  let 


"Will  you  be  good  enough  to  buy  for  my  account,  Mr.  Mackie?"    Page  112 


THE    SINEWS    OF   WAR  113 

me  know  when  you  are  going  to  get  out,  so  I  can  pull 
through  without  having  to  take  the  bankruptcy." 

"I'll  do  it,  Mr.  Brewster,"  laughed  Ford.   "Only  I'm 
not  going  to  get  out — unless  you  folks  freeze  me  out." 
"Then  it  isn't  a  long  bluff  on  your  part?" 
"It  is,  and  it  isn't.   We  still  stand  to  win  if  we  have 
the  nerve  to  hold  on — in  which  event  P.  S-W.  at  twenty- 
nine  and  a  fraction  is  a  gold  mine.   That's  one  view  of 
it,  and  the  other  is  this :  we've  simply  got  to  corner  our 
own  stock  if  we  expect  to  sell  thirty  millions  additional 
bonds." 

"Well,  I  guess  you've  gone  the  right  way  about  it. 
But  are  you  sure  about  these  Chicago  terminals?  A 
legal  friend  of  mine  here  says  you'll  never  get  in." 

"He  was  possibly  paid  to  say  it,"  said  Ford  hotly. 
"There  has  never  been  a  shadow  of  doubt  touching  our 
trackage  rights  on  the  C.  P.  &  D.  contracts,  or  upon 
our  ability  to  maintain  them.  All  the  Transcontinental 
people  hoped  to  do  was  to  make  a  newspaper  stir  to  help 
keep  our  stock  down.  They  know  what  we  are  going  to 
do  to  them  over  in  their  western  territory,  and  they 
won't  stop  at  anything  to  block  us." 

"Of  course ;  I  think  we  were  all  inclined  to  be  a  little 
short-sighted  and  pessimistic  here,  Mr.   Ford.    When 
do  you  go  back  to  your  fighting  ground  ?" 
"To-night." 
"You  won't  wait  to  see  what  happens  here  ?" 


114:  EMPIKE    BUILDERS 

"I  don't  need  to,  I  am  sure.  And  the  minutes — my 
minutes — are  worth  dollars  to  the  company  just  now." 

"Well,  go  in  and  win — only  don't  forget  to  give  me 
that  tip.  You  wouldn't  want  to  see  a  man  of  my  age 
going  to  the  poorhouse." 

"One  other  word,  Mr.  Brewster,"  Ford  begged,  as  the 
copper  magnate  was  pointing  for  the  door  of  escape. 
"Please  don't  let  any  of  these  timid  gentlemen  sell  till 
we  get  our  bonds  floated.  You  mark  my  word :  the  temp 
tation  to  make  a  big  killing  is  going  to  be  very  great, 
within  a  week." 

The  copper  king  laughed ;  openly,  this  time. 

"You  overrate  my  influence,  Mr.  Ford;  but  I'll  do 
what  I  can — by  word  of  mouth  and  by  example.  You 
can  count  on  me — as  long  as  you  let  me  stay  on  your 
side  of  the  market." 

Ford  had  three  several  invitations  to  luncheon  after 
the  meeting  adjourned,  but  he  accepted  none  of  them. 
To  Adair  he  made  the  declination  courteous  while  they 
were  trundling  back  to  the  Waldorf  in  the  big  touring 
car. 

"I  have  lost  an  entire  day  because  I  could  not  take 
the  time  to  secure  a  stenographer  before  leaving  Chicago 
night  before  last.  I  must  find  one  now  and  go  to  work." 

"All  right;  if  you  must.  But  I  was  hoping  I  could 
take  you  out  to  Overlook  to  dinner  this  evening.  Can't 
you  come  anyhow,  and  take  a  later  train  west  ?" 


THE    SINEWS    OF    WAR  115 

"Don't  tempt  me,"  said  Ford.  And  then :  "The  ladies 
are  quite  well,  I  hope  ?" 

"Oh,  yes;  they  are  in  town  to-day,  and  we  are  all 
going  to  luncheon  together — though  I  shan't  know  just 
where  until  I  go  to  the  club.  Failing  the  dinner,  won't 
you  make  a  knife  and  fork  with  us  at  one  o'clock  ?" 

"I  should  like  to — more  than  anything  else  in  the 
world,"  Ford  protested,  meaning  it.  "But  you'll  make 
my  excuses  to  Mrs.  Adair,  won't  you?  We've  simply 
got  to  get  a  three-cornered  hustle  on  now,  if  we  want 
to  save  the  day  in  the  West." 

"Why?  Is  there  anything  new  in  that  quarter?" 

"There  is:  something  that  I  didn't  dare  to  mention 
back  yonder  in  the  board  meeting.  You  may  remem 
ber  that  I  told  you  I  had  left  a  man  in  my  place  on  the 
Plug  Mountain — Frisbie?  I  had  a  wire  from  him, 
night  before  last,  just  as  I  was  leaving  Chicago.  As  you 
know,  the  Pacific  Southwestern  inherits,  from  the  old 
narrow-gauge  purchase,  the  right-of-way  over  Plug  Pass 
and  down  the  valley  of  the  Pannikin.  Frisbie  wires  that 
the  Transcontinental  people  have  begun  massing  build 
ing  material  at  the  terminus  of  their  Saguache  branch, 
only  twenty  miles  from  the  Pass." 

"And  that  means  ? — I'm  lame  on  geography." 

"It  means  that  they'll  cut  in  ahead  of  us,  if  they 
can.  Plug  Pass  is  the  only  available  unoccupied  outlet 
through  the  mountains  for  thirty  or  forty  miles  north 


116  EMPIEE   BUILDERS 

or  south ;  and  if  we  don't  get  our  building  force  on  the 
ground  mighty  suddenly,  we'll  find  it  fortified  and  held 
by  the  enemy." 

The  touring  car  had  turned  into  Broadway,  and  the 
traffic  roar  precluded  further  talk.  But  when  Ford  was 
dismounting  from  the  tonneau  at  the  entrance  to  his 
hotel,  Adair  said :  "There  appears  to  be  no  rest  for  the 
wicked.  You  ought  to  have  some  of  that  thirty  million 
dollars  to  spend  right  now." 

Ford's  smile  was  little  more  than  a  sardonic  grin. 

"Adair/'  he  said,  "I'm  going  to  tell  you  something 
else  that  I  didn't  dare  tell  those  money-tremulous  people 
in  McVeigh  and  Mackie's  private  office.  I  have  been 
signing  contracts  and  buying  material  by  the  train-load 
ever  since  the  first  grain  shipment  was  started  eastward 
on  our  main  line.  Also,  I've  got  my  engineering  corps 
mobilized,  and  it  will  take  the  field  under  Frisbie  as  its 
chief  not  later  than  to-morrow.  Putting  one  thing  with 
another,  I  should  say  that  we  are  something  over  a  fresh 
million  of  dollars  on  the  wrong  side  of  solvency  for 
these  little  antics  of  mine,  and  I'm  adding  to  the  deficit 
by  the  hundred  thousand  every  time  I  can  get  a  chance 
to  dictate  a  letter." 

Adair  lighted  a  cigarette  and  made  a  fair  show  of 
taking  it  easily.  But  a  moment  later  he  was  lifting  his 
hat  to  wipe  the  perspiration  from  his  forehead. 

"Lord!  but  you  have  the  confidence  of  your  convic- 


THE    SINEWS    OF    WAR  117 

tions  I"  he  said,  breathing  hard.  "If  we  shouldn't  hap 
pen  to  be  able  to  float  the  bonds — " 

"We  are  in  too  deep  to  admit  the  If.'  The  bonds  must 
be  floated,  and  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  that 
Magnus  will  move  in  it.  You  wanted  something  big 
enough  to  keep  you  interested.  I  have  been  trying  my 
best  to  accommodate  you." 

Adair  leaned  forward  and  spoke  to  his  chauffeur. 
The  man  watched  his  chances  for  room  to  turn  in  the 
crowded  street. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  asked  Ford. 

"Back  to  McVeigh  and  Mackie's — where  I  can  watch 
a  ticker  and  go  broke  buying  more  Pacific  Southwest 
ern/'  was  the  reply,  and  just  then  the  chauffeur  found 
his  opening  and  the  big  car  whirled  and  plunged  into 
the  down-town  stream. 

In  the  financial  news  the  next  morning  there  was  a 
half-column  or  more  devoted  to  the  sudden  and  unac 
countable  flurry  in  Pacific  Southwestern.  Ford  got  it 
in  the  Pittsburg  papers  and  read  it  while  the  picked- 
up  stenographer  was  wrestling  with  his  notes.  After 
the  drop  in  the  stock,  caused,  in  the  estimation  of  the 
writer,  by  the  company's  sudden  plunge  into  railroad 
buying  at  wholesale,  P.  S-W.  had  recovered  with  a 
bound,  advancing  rapidly  in  the  closing  hours  of  the  day 
from  the  lower  thirties  to  forty-two,  with  a  strong  de 
mand.  The  utmost  secrecy  was  maintained,  but  it  was 


rxiriKr   ui  ii.nrK* 

•:>»vfo«l    i1 

-npotitor 
•?d«\  had 
,h    tho    •  Itt    trans  ^ 

;.Mial  development*  n- 
-..'d   if  thr  battle  sb.oul,!   1 
Thi-v.  -1  ;l  briri 



Miinnl,  lm<  lacking — «s  l-'on^  ivmnrkr.l 
.fully-    I  of  tho   -  -   dosijri- 

favll. 

»*1  .     \  '  ibo  oibrvs  only  li.-nv  <bo 

:  to  himself.    Tbta  bt 

<!-..  ••n1»>  Uio 

••king-  <bo  piokod-\ip 
pbor  until  IV 

^inrni  <bo  final  lottor  was  tiloil  for  mailing 
in  tb.1 

>  .Mino;  IT  >om 

\        >  orV  like  a  high 

motor    wbilo    bo    \\aitod.     V.^}\    - 

.^ntiniuvi  \\ing  siuvoss  of  tbo  hoMIt* 

ttMUl  |  •••  -    .-    .  ..      otiBf 

thai  ce  should 

k. 

vomblixl  for  tho  gxxxl  faith  of  his  bactowi  Oft 
the  Ivard.    Whrv.  at  twontx  nd  a 


Till';    MINIiWM    n|<     \\Alt  i 


imir  (Hi'i  ••mi  nil  ••  iiiiiii  i  in  .....  i   I*"  •  •  i.i       •  •   tin 
i-  »'i'(  •''  ......    """  thinji  '  •  ........  '•  u     i-'ii  -ii  ii"  -  ' 

I,  MMI     .,1     I  I,,      (ill  I,     ,!.,-,     I  In      .1.   inilllil     Wli.'    •  I  ill     ;   • 

I..    ,,         fort!        "      "    '"    ''       I  '"         Hotl    I       U,  ..I        III;     U        II..    M         ••      . 
I,    I,    I    ,.,,,,     I,.,,,,       \,l    ill       ,  I,,,,, 

I  !••  Ion  'i  "i"  "  '".it.  i.i  ii    ••.  ii  ii  1  1,.  1,1  .....  i  |,, 
throtij  I-  bl   •  •  Ifl   mi'!  u  i"ni  \\  in.  i,  \HM  i,.,  i  ,,r  u..  itrwti 

I    Mllll-         -ll    NM,,  .....  ••       Ml       I.I  <       » 

I  I         .   !.,:.«.,  I      i.l      i,lii<  I  \    I  -AM     In  ilny.     'Mill     u      hul.  Ii 

•II.  nlc     will     I  ill-*      I  I..       I  ......  I  M,.       \\  ,      I,    ,  ,, 

wlM«'in«'HM       Mn-w"i-  i        '"i      '••  1-iMiw  IMIV.  .  u   .-   -  i. 

I.I   •     I  'lull    <  n|.|.i   i      M  .in.  M  Al- 


XI 


HURRY  ORDERS 

"I'm  no  cold-water  thrower,  Ford,  as  you  know.  But 
if  I  were  a  contractor,  and  you  were  trying  to  get  me 
to  commit  myself  to  any  such  steeplechase,  I  should  say 
no,  and  confirm  it  with  a  cuss-word." 

It  was  a  week  after  the  successful  placing  of  the 
Western  Extension  building-fund  honds  with  the  Dutch 
syndicate,  and  Ford,  having  ordered  things  to  his  lik 
ing  on  the  newly  opened  Chicago  line,  had  taken  the 
long  step  westward  to  Denver  to  begin  the  forging  of 
the  third  link  in  the  great  railway  chain. 

Frisbie,  now  first  assistant  engineer  in  charge  of  con 
struction,  had  come  down  from  Saint's  Eest  for  a  con 
ference  with  his  chief,  and  the  place  of  conferrings  was 
a  quiet  corner  in  one  of  the  balconies  overlooking  the 
vast  rotunda  of  the  Brown  Palace  Hotel;  this  because 
the  carpenters  were  still  busy  in  the  suite  of  rooms  set 
apart  for  the  offices  of  the  assistant  to  the  president  in 
the  Pacific  Southwestern  headquarters  down-town. 

120 


HURRY    ORDERS 


"You  mean  that  the  time  is  too  short?"  said  Ford, 
speaking  to  Frisbie's  emphatic  objection. 

"Too  short  at  both  ends,"  contended  the  little  man 
with  the  devilish  mustaches  and  chin  beard.  "The 
Copah  mining  district  is  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles, 
as  the  crow  flies,  from  the  summit  of  Plug  Pass  —  say 
one  hundred  and  forty  by  the  line  of  our  survey  down 
the  Pannikin,  through  the  canyon  and  up  to  the  town. 
Giving  you  full  credit  for  more  getting-ready  than  I 
supposed  any  man  could  compass  in  the  three  weeks 
you've  been  at  it,  I  still  think  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
reach  Copah  this  season." 

"You  must  change  your  belief,  Dick/7  was  the  curt 
rejoinder.  "This  is  to  be  a  campaign,  not  only  of  pos 
sibilities,  but  of  things  done.  We  go  into  Copah  with 
the  steel  gangs  before  snow  flies." 

"I  know;  that's  what  you've  been  saying  all  along. 
But  you're  looking  at  the  thing  by  and  large,  and  I'm 
figuring  on  the  flinty  details.  For  example:  you'll  ad 
mit  that  we  can't  work  to  any  advantage  west  of  the 
mountains  until  we  have  made  a  standard  gauge  out  of 
the  Plug  Mountain  branch.  How  much  time  have  you 
been  allowing  for  that  ?" 

"No  time  at  all  for  the  delay:  about  three  weeks, 
maybe,  for  the  actual  changing  of  the  gauge,"  said  Ford 
coolly. 

"All  right,"  laughed  Frisbie.    "Only  you'll  show  us 


122  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

how.  It  doesn't  lie  in  the  back  of  my  head — or  in  Crap- 
sey's,  unless  he's  a  better  man  than  I  hired  him  for." 

"Who  is  Crapsey?" 

"He  is  a  Purdue  man  that  I  picked  up  and  started 
out  on  the  branch  to  make  figures  on  the  change  of 
gauge.  The  other  three  parties,  under  Major  Benson, 
Jack  Benson  and  Roy  Brissac,  are  setting  the  grade 
stakes  down  the  Pannikin,  and  Leckhard  is  wrestling 
with  the  construction  material  you've  been  dumping  in 
upon  us  at  Saint's  Rest.  That  left  me  short,  and  I  hired 
Crapsey." 

"Good.  If  he  is  capable,  he  may  do  the  broadening. 
Call  him  in  and  set  him  at  it." 

"But,  man !  Don't  you  want  the  figures  first?" 

"My  dear  Dick !  I've  had  those  figures  for  two  years, 
and  there's  nothing  very  complicated  about  that  part 
of  our  problem.  Call  your  man  in  and  let  him  attack 
the  thing  itself." 

"Everything  goes:  you  may  consider  him  recalled. 
But  broadening  the  Plug  Mountain  to  standard  gauge 
doesn't  put  us  into  Copah  this  summer,  does  it  ?" 

"No;  our  necessities  will  do  that  for  us.  See  here; 
let  me  show  you."  Ford  took  out  his  note-book  and  on 
a  blank  page  of  it  outlined  a  rough  map,  talking  as  he 
sketched.  "Three  weeks  ago  you  wired  me  that  the 
Transcontinental  people  were  massing  building  ma 
terial  at  the  terminus  of  their  Saguache  branch." 


HURRY    ORDERS 


"So  I  did,"  said  Frisbie. 

"And  the  day  before  yesterday  you  wired  again  to 
say  that  it  was  apparently  a  false  alarm.  What  made 
you  change  your  mind  ?" 

"They  are  hauling  the  stuff  away  —  over  to  their 
Green  Butte  line,  I'm  told." 

"Why  are  they  hauling  it  away  ?" 

"The  bluff  —  their  bluff  —  was  called.  We  had  got  busy 
on  Plug  Pass,  and  they  saw  there  was  no  hope  of  cutting 
in  ahead  of  us  at  that  point." 

"Exactly.  Now  look  at  this  map  for  a  minute.  Here 
is  Saint's  Rest;  here  is  the  Copah  district;  and  here  is 
Green  Butte,  the  junction  of  their  narrow  gauge  with 
the  standard-gauge  Salt  Lake  and  Eastern.  If  you  were 
on  the  Transcontinental  executive  committee  and  saw 
an  active  competing  line  about  to  build  a  standard-gauge 
railroad  through  the  Copah  district  and  on  to  a  connec 
tion  with  your  narrow  gauge's  outlet  at  Green  Butte, 
what  would  you  advise  ?" 

Frisbie  nodded.  "It's  easy,  when  you  know  how,  isn't 
it  They'll  standardize  their  narrow  gauge  to  Green 
Butte,  make  an  iron-clad  traffic  contract  with  the  S.  L. 
&  E.  to  exclude  us,  and  build  a  branch  from  Jack's 
Canyon,  say,  up  into  the  Copah  country."  And  then  in 
loyal  admiration:  "That's  what  I  call  the  sure  word 
of  prophecy  —  your  specialty,  Stuart.  How  many  nights' 
sleep  did  you  lose  figuring  that  out  ?" 


124  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

"Not  any,  as  it  happens,"  laughed  Ford.  "It  was  a 
straight  tip  out  of  the  East.  The  plan,  just  about  as 
you've  outlined  it,  was  adopted  by  the  Transcontinental 
powers  that  be,  sitting  in  New  York  last  week.  By  some 
means  unknown  to  me,  Mr.  Adair  got  wind  of  it,  and 
made  a  flying  trip  to  Chicago  to  put  me  on — wouldn't 
even  trust  the  wire  with  it.  Now  you  understand  why 
we've  got  to  wake  the  Copah  echoes  with  a  locomotive 
whistle  this  season/' 

"Copah — yes,"  said  Frisbie  doubtfully.  "But  that  is 
only  a  way  station.  What  we  need  is  Green  Butte  and 
the  Pacific  coast  outlet  over  the  S.  L.  &  E. ;  and  they 
stand  to  euchre  us  out  of  that,  hands  down.  What's  to 
prevent  their  making  that  traffic  contract  with  the  Mor 
mon  people  right  now  ?" 

"Nothing;  if  the  S.  L.  &  E.  management  were  will 
ing.  But  just  here  the  political  situation  in  Mormon- 
dom  fights  for  us.  Last  year  the  Transcontinental  folk 
turned  heaven  and  earth  over  to  defeat  the  Mormon  can 
didate  for  the  United  States  Senate.  The  quarrel  wasn't 
quite  mortal  enough  to  stand  in  the  way  of  a  profitable 
business  deal ;  but  all  things  being  equal,  the  Salt  Lake 
line  will  favor  us  as  against  its  political  enemy." 

"You're  sure  of  that  ?"  queried  Frisbie. 

"As  sure  as  one  can  be  of  anything  that  isn't  cash 
down  on  the  nail — with  the  money  locked  up  in  a  safety 
deposit  vault.  By  the  sheerest  good  luck,  the  Mormon 


HURRY    ORDERS  125 

president  of  the  S.  U.  &  E.  happened  to  be  in  New  York" 
at  the  time  when  Adair  had  his  ear  to  the  Transconti 
nental  keyhole.  Adair  hunted  him  up  and  made  a 
hypothetical  case  of  a  sure  thing :  if  our  Western  Exten 
sion  and  the  Transcontinental,,  standard-gauged,  should 
be  knocking  at  the  Green  Butte  door  at  the  same  time, 
what  would  the  S.  L.  &  E.  do?  The  Mormon  answer 
was  a  bid  for  speed ;  first  come,  first  served.  But  Adair 
was  given  to  understand,  indirectly,  that  on  an  equal 
footing,  our  line  would  be  given  the  preference  as  a 
friendly  ally/' 

"Bully  for  the  Mormon!  But  you  say  Copah — this 
summer.  When  we  reach  Copah  we  are  still  one  hun 
dred  and  forty  miles  short  of  Green  Butte.  And  if  you 
can  broaden  the  Plug  Mountain  in  three  weeks — which 
you'll  still  allow  me  to  doubt — the  Transcontinental 
ought  to  be  able  to  broaden  its  Green  Butte  narrow 
gauge  in  three  months." 

"If  you  had  cross-sectioned  both  lines  as  I  have,  you 
wouldn't  stumble  over  that,"  said  Ford,  falling  back,  as 
he  commonly  did,  upon  the  things  he  knew.  "We  shall 
broaden  the  Plug  Mountain  without  straightening  a 
curve  or  throwing  a  shovelful  of  earth  on  the  embank 
ment,  from  beginning  to  end.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Green  Butte  narrow  gauge  runs  for  seventy  miles 
through  the  crookedest  canyon  a  Rocky  Mountain  river 
ever  got  lost  in.  There  is  more  heavy  rock  work  to  be 


126  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

done  in  that  canyon  than  on  our  entire  Pannikin  division 
from  start  to  finish." 

"That's  bully  for  us/'  quoth  the  first  assistant.  "But, 
all  the  same,  we  shouldn't  stop  at  Copah,  this  fall." 

"We  shall  not  stop  at  Copah,"  was  the  decisive  re 
joinder.  "The  winters  on  the  western  side  of  the  range 
are  much  milder  than  they  are  here,  and  not  to  be 
spoken  of  in  the  same  day  with  your  Minnesota  and 
Dakota  stamping-ground.  If  we  can  get  well  out  of  the 
mountains  before  the  heavy  snows  come — " 

Frisbie  wagged  his  head. 

"I  guess  I've  got  it  all,  now — after  so  long  a  time. 
We  merely  break  the  record  for  fast  railroad  building — 
all  the  records — for  the  next  six  months  or  so.  Is  that 
about  it?" 

'^You've  surrounded  it,"  said  Ford  tersely. 

"Good  enough:  we're  ready  to  make  the  break  when 
you  give  the  word.  What  are  we  waiting  for  ?" 

"Just  at  this  present  moment,  for  the  contractors." 

"Why,  I  understood  you  had  closed  with  the  Mac- 
Morrogh  Brothers,"  said  Frisbie. 

"No.  At  the  last  moment — to  relieve  me  of  a  re 
sponsibility  which  might  give  rise  to  charges  of  favor 
itism,  as  he  put  it — Mr.  Colbrith  took  the  bids  out  of 
my  hands  and  carried  the  decision  up  to  the  executive 
committee.  Hence,  we  wait;  and  keep  a  growing  army 
of  laborers  here  under  pay  while  we  wait,"  said  Ford, 


HURRY    ORDERS  137 

with  disgust  thinly  masked.  Then  he  added:  "With 
all  due  respect  to  Mr.  Colbrith,,  he  is  simply  a  senile 
frost!" 

Frisbie  chuckled. 

"Been  cooling  your  fingers,  has  he?  But  I  under 
stood  from  the  headquarters  people  down-town,  that  the 
MacMorroghs  had  a  sure  thing  on  the  grading  and  rock 
work.  Their  bid  was  the  lowest,  wasn't  it  ?" 

"Yes;  but  not  the  cheapest  for  the  company,  Dick. 
I've  been  keeping  tab  on  the  MacMorroghs  for  a  good 
while:  they  are  grafters;  the  kind  of  men  who  take  it 
out  of  the  company  and  out  of  their  labor  in  a  thousand 
petty  little  steals — three  profits  on  the  commissary, 
piece-work  for  subs  where  they  know  a  man's  got  to  lose 
out,  steals  on  the  working  hours,  fines  and  drawbacks 
and  discounts  on  the  pay-rolls,  and  all  that.  You  know 
how  it's  done." 

"Sure,"  agreed  Frisbie,  with  his  most  diabolical  grin. 
"Also,  I  know  how  it  keeps  the  engineering  department 
on  the  hottest  borders  of  Hades,  trying  to  hold  them 
down.  The  good  Lord  deliver  us !" 

"I  wanted  to  throw  their  bid  out  without  considera 
tion,"  Ford  went  on.  "But  again  Mr.  Colbrith  said 
'No,'  adding  that  the  MacMorroghs  were  old  contractors 
on  the  line,  and  that  Mr.  North  had  always  spoken  very 
highly  of  them." 

"Ah;  the  fine  Italian  hand  of  Mr.  North  again," 


128  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

said  Frisbie.  "And  that  reminds  me:  are  we  going  to 
be  at  war  with  the  main  line  operating  department  ?" 

Ford  shook  his  head.  "Not  openly,  at  least.  North 
was  down  to  meet  my  train  when  I  came  in  last  night, 
and  you  would  never  have  suspected  that  I  left  Denver 
six  weeks  ago  without  his  blessing.  And  now  Fin  re 
minded.  I  have  a  luncheon  appointment  with  him  at 
twelve,  and  a  lot  of  letters  to  dictate  before  I  can  keep 
it.  Go  down  and  do  your  wiring  for  Crapsey,  and  if  we 
lose  each  other  this  afternoon,  Fll  meet  you  here  at  din 
ner  this  evening/' 

It  was  while  Ford  was  working  on  his  mail,  with  one 
of  the  hotel  stenographers  for  a  helper,  that  a  thick-set, 
bull-necked  man  with  Irish-blue  eyes  and  a  face  two- 
thirds  hidden  in  a  curly  tangle  of  iron-gray  beard, 
stubbed  through  the  corridor  on  the  Pacific  Southwest 
ern  floor  of  the  Guaranty  Building,  and  let  himself 
cautiously  into  the  general  manager's  outer  office.  The 
private  secretary,  a  faultlessly  groomed  young  fellow 
with  a  suggestion  of  the  Latin  races  in  his  features, 
looked  up  and  nodded. 

"How  are  you,  Mr.  MacMorrogh?"  he  said;  and 
without  waiting  for  a  reply:  "Go  on  in.  Mr.  North  is 
expecting  you." 

The  burly  one  returned  the  nod  and  passed  on  to  the 
inner  room.  The  general  manager,  a  sallow,  heavy- 
visaged  man  who  might  have  passed  in  a  platform 


HURRY    ORDERS  129 

gathering  for  a  retired  manufacturer  or  a  senator  from 
the  Middle  West,  swung  in  his  pivot-chair  to  welcome 
the  incomer. 

"Glad  to  see  you,  MacMorrogh.  Sit  down.  What's 
the  news  from  New  York  ?" 

The  contractor  found  a,  chair,  drew  it  close  to  the 
general  manager's  desk,  and  filled  it. 

"I'm  thinking  you'll  know  more  about  that  than  I 
will,  Misther  North,"  he  replied,  in  a  voice  that  accorded 
perfectly  with  the  burly  figure  and  piratical  beard. 
"Ford's  fighting  us  with  his  fishtes." 

"Why  ?"  asked  the  general  manager,  holding  his  chin 
in  his  hand — a  gesture  known  the  entire  length  of  the 
Pacific  Southwestern  as  a  signal  of  trouble  brewing,  for 
somebody. 

"God  knows,  then;  I  don't,"  said  the  MacMorrogh. 
"I  wint  to  Chicago  to  see  him  when  the  bid  was  in,  and 
d'ye  think  he  would  lave  me  talk  it  over  with  him? 
Not  him !  Wan  day  he'd  be  too  busy ;  and  the  next,  I'd 
have  to  call  again.  'Twas  good  for  him  I  was  not  me 
brother  Dan.  Dan  would  've  kicked  the  dure  in  and 
t'rown  him  out  av  the  windy." 

The  wan  ghost  of  a  smile  flitted  across  the  impassive 
face  of  the  big  man  at  the  desk. 

"Let  me  tell  you  something,  MacMorrogh.  If  you,  or 
your  brother  Dan,  ever  find  it  necessary  to  go  after 
Ford,  don't  give  him  notice  by  battering  down  doors. 


130  EMPIRE   BUILDEES 

You  won't,  I  know.  But  about  the  contract :  you  haven't 
heard  from  the  executive  committee  ?" 

"Not  the  half  of  wan  wor-rd." 

"Have  you  any  idea  of  what  is  causing  the  delay  ?" 

"'Tis  dommed  well  I  know,  Misther  North.  Ford 
is  keeping  the  wires  hot  against  us.  If  I  could  have 
Misther  Colbrith  here  with  you  for  wan  five  minutes — " 

The  general  manager  broke  in,  following  his  own  line 
of  thought. 

"Ford  is  in  Denver;  he  came  in  from  Chicago  last 
night.  Why  don't  you  go  up  to  the  Brown  and  have  it 
out  with  him  ?" 

"Fight  it  out,  d'ye  mean?" 

"Certainly  not.  Make  friends  with  him.'3 

The  contractor  sat  back  in  his  chair  and  plunged  his 
stubby  hands  deep  into  his  pockets. 

"Give  me  the  sthraight  tip,  Misther  North." 

"It  ought  to  suggest  itself  to  you.  This  is  a  big  job, 
with  a  great  deal  of  money  passing.  Your  profits,  over 
and  above  what  you  will  make  out  of  the  company,  will 
be  quite  large.  Ford  is  an  ambitious  young  man,  and  he 
is  not  building  railroads  for  his  health." 

The  MacMorrogh  was  nodding  slowly.  Nevertheless, 
he  made  difficulties. 

"Me  hand's  not  light  enough  for  that,  Misther 
North." 

Again  the  general  manager  smiled. 


HURRY  ORDERS  131 

"You  require  a  deal  of  prompting,  sometimes,  Brian. 
What's  the  matter  with  a  trusty  go-between  ?" 

"H'm,  that's  it,  now.  But  where  to  lay  me  finger  on 
the  right  man.  Tis  a  risk  to  run — with  a  yooung  fire 
brand  like  Ford  holding  the  other  end  iv  the  string." 

"Still  I  think  the  man  can  be  found.  But  first  we 
must  make  sure  of  your  contract,  with  or  without  Ford. 
Your  suggestion  about  taking  the  matter  up  with  Mr. 
Colbrith  in  person  strikes  me  favorably.  Can  you  spare 
the  time  to  go  to  New  York  ?" 

"Sure  I  can/' 

"At  once?" 

"The  wan  minute  for  sthriking  is  whin  the  iron's 
hot,  Misther  North." 

The  general  manager  put  aside  the  thick  file  of  papers 
he  had  been  examining  when  MacMorrogh  entered,  and 
began  to  set  his  desk  in  order. 

"I  have  been  thinking  I  might  make  it  convenient 
to  go  with  you.  I  presume  you  have  no  objection  to 
going  as  my  guest  in  the  Naught-Seven  ?" 

"  'Tis  an  honor  you're  doing  me,  Misther  North,  and 
I'll  not  be  forgetting  it." 

"Not  at  all.  There  are  some  matters  connected  with 
this  contract  that  I'd  like  to  talk  over  with  you  pri 
vately,  and  if  we  can  agree  upon  them,  I  may  be  able 
to  help  you  with  Mr.  Colbrith  and  the  executive  com 
mittee." 


132  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

The  general  manager  pressed  one  of  the  electric  but 
tons  on  the  side  of  the  desk,  and  to  the  clerk  who  an 
swered  gave  a  brief  order:  "Have  the  Naught-Seven 
provisioned  and  made  up  to  go  east  as  a  special  at 
twelve-ten  to-day.  Tell  Despatcher  Darby  to  make  the 
schedule  fast — nineteen  hours  or  less  to  the  River." 

The  clerk  nodded  and  disappeared,  and  North  turned 
again  £o  MacMorrogh. 

"Now  about  that  other  matter:  I'll  find  you  a  go- 
between  to  approach  Ford;  but  to  be  quite  frank  with 
you,  you'll  have  to  be  liberal  with  the  young  man  for  his 
services.  When  you  go  into  the  diplomatic  field,  you 
have  to  spend  money."  He  was  pressing  another  of  the 
electric  buttons  as  he  spoke,  and  to  the  office  boy  who 
put  his  face  in  at  the  door,  he  said:  "Ask  Mr.  Eck 
stein  to  step  in  here  a  minute." 

It  was  the  private  secretary,  the  well-groomed  young 
man  with  the  alien  eyes  and  nose  who  answered  the 
summons.  North  gave  him  his  instructions  in  a  curt 
sentence. 

"Mr.  MacMorrogh  would  like  to  have  a  little  talk 
with  you,  Eckstein :  take  him  into  the  other  room  where 
you  can  be  undisturbed." 

It  was  half  an  hour  later  when  the  door  of  the  library 
opened  to  readmit  the  private  secretary  and  the  con 
tractor,  and  in  the  interval  the  division  superintendent's 
clerk  had  returned  to  say  that  the  special  train  schedule 


HUKRY   ORDERS  133 

was  made  up,  and  that  the  Naught-Seven  would  be 
waiting  at  the  Union  Station  at  twelve-ten. 

"Well  ?"  said  the  general  manager,  lifting  a  slow  eye 
brow  at  MacMorrogh  and  compressing  into  the  single 
word  his  wish  to  know  what  had  been  done  in  the  con 
ference  of  two. 

"  'Tis  all  right,  Misther  North/'  said  the  contractor, 
rubbing  his  hands.  "  >Tis  a  crown  jewel  ye  have  in  this 
yooung — " 

North  cut  the  eulogy  short  in  a  word  to  his  secretary. 

"I  go  east,  special,  at  twelve-ten,  Eckstein,  as  Mr. 
MacMorrogh  has  probably  told  you.  I  have  a  luncheon 
appointment  at  twelve  with  Mr.  Ford.  Meet  him  when 
he  comes,  and  make  my  excuses — without  telling  him 
anything  he  ought  not  to  know.  If  you  can  take  my 
place  as  his  host,  do  so ;  but  in  any  event,  keep  him  from 
finding  out  where  we  have  gone  until  we  are  well  on 
the  way.  That's  all." 

This  was  why  Ford,  walking  the  few  blocks  from  his 
hotel  at  noon  to  keep  his  engagement  with  North, 
found  the  general  manager's  private  office  closed,  and  a 
suave,  soft-spoken  young  man  with  a  foreign  cast  of 
countenance  waiting  to  make  his  superior's  excuses. 

"Mr.  North  was  called  out  of  town  quite  unexpectedly 
on  a  wire,"  was  the  private  secretary's  explanation.  "He 
tried  to  telephone  you  at  the  Brown,  but  the  operator 
couldn't  find  you.  He  left  me  to  explain,  and  I've  been 


134  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

wondering  if  you'd  let  me  take  his  place  as  your  host, 
Mr.  Ford." 

Now  Ford's  attitude  toward  his  opponents  was,  by 
reason  of  his  gifts,  openly  belligerent;  wherefore  he 
fought  against  it  and  tried  to  be  as  other  men  are. 

"I  am  sure  Mr.  North  is  quite  excusable,  and  it  is 
good-natured  in  you  to  stand  in  the  breach,  Mr.  Eck 
stein,"  he  said.  "Of  course,  I'll  be  glad  to  go  with  you." 

They  went  to  Tortoni's,  and  to  a  private  room;  and 
the  luncheon  was  an  epicurean  triumph.  Eckstein 
talked  well,  and  was  evidently  a  young  man  of  parts. 
Not  until  the  cigars  were  lighted  did  he  suffer  the  table- 
talk  to  come  down  to  the  railroad  practicalities;  and 
even  then  he  merely  followed  Ford's  lead. 

"Oh,  yes;  we  have  made  arrangements  to  give  you  a 
clear  deck  in  the  Denver  yards  for  your  material  and 
supplies,"  he  said,  in  answer  to  a  question  of  Ford's 
about  side-track  room  and  yard  facilities  at  the  point 
which  would  have  to  serve  as  his  base.  "Following  your 
orders,  we  have  been  forwarding  all  that  your  Plug 
Mountain  rolling  stock  could  handle,  but  there  is  con 
siderable  more  of  it  side-tracked  here.  After  the  Mac- 
Morrogh  grading  outfit  has  gone  to  the  front,  we  shall 
have  more  room,  however." 

"The  MacMorrogh  outfit  ?"  queried  Ford.  "Do  they 
store  it  in  our  yards  ?" 

"Oh,  no.   They  have  a  pretty  complete  railroad  yard 


HURRY   ORDERS  135 

of  their  own  at  their  headquarters  in  Pueblo.  But  they 
have  three  train-loads  of  tools  and  machinery  here  now, 
waiting  for  your  orders  to  send  them  to  the  front." 

Ford  weighed  the  possibilities  thoughtfully  and  con 
cluded  that  nothing  could  be  lost  by  a  frank  declaration 
of  principles. 

"They  have  given  you  folks  a  wrong  impression,  Mr. 
Eckstein/'  he  said  mildly.  "The  contract  for  the  grad 
ing  on  the  Western  Extension  is  not  yet  awarded;  and 
if  I  can  compass  it,  the  MacMorrogh  Brothers'  bid  will 
be  thrown  out." 

The  private  secretary  tried  to  look  mystified,  with 
just  the  proper  touch  of  a  subordinate's  embarrass 
ment. 

"I'm  only  a  clerk,  Mr.  Ford,"  he  said,  "and,  of  course, 
I'm  not  supposed  to  know  more  than  I  see  and  hear  in 
the  regular  way  of  business.  But  I  understood  that  the 
MacMorroghs  were  in  the  saddle;  that  they  were  only 
waiting  for  you  to  provide  track-room  at  Saint's  Rest 
for  their  tool  cars  and  outfit." 

"No,"  said  Ford.  "It  hasn't  got  that  far  along  yet" 

Eckstein  looked  at  his  watch. 

"Don't  let  me  keep  you,  if  there  is  anything  else  you 
want  to  do,  Mr.  Ford;  but  I'll  confess  you've  aroused 
my  curiosity.  What  is  the  matter  with  the  MacMor 
roghs?" 

Ford  answered  the  question  by  asking  another. 


136  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

"Do  you  know  them,  Mr.  Eckstein?" 

"Why — yes ;  as  Mr.  North's  chief  clerk  would  He  like 
ly  to  know  the  firm  of  contractors  which  has  been  given 
a  good  share  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern  work  for  a 
number  of  years." 

"Do  you  know  any  good  of  them  ?" 

"Bless  me !  yes :  I  don't  know  anything  else  of  them. 
Three  hearty,  bluff,  rough-tongued  Irishmen;  lacking 
diplomacy  and  all  the  finer  touches,  if  you  like,  but  good 
fellows  and  hustlers  of  the  keenest." 

Ford  fastened  his  companion  in  a  steady  eye-grip. 
"One  question,  Mr.  Eckstein ;  do  they  play  fair  with  all 
concerned  ?" 

"They  are  more  than  fair;  they  are  generous — with 
the  company,  and  with  the  company's  representatives 
with  whom  they  have  to  do  business.  On  two  contracts 
with  us  they  have  lost  money ;  but  I  happen  to  know  that 
in  both  instances  they  kept  their  promises  to  the  en 
gineering  department  to  the  letter." 

Ford  had  cast  off  the  eye-grip  and  he  appeared  to  be 
studying  the  fresco  design  of  the  ceiling  over  the  private 
secretary's  head. 

"And  those  promises  were — ?" 

Eckstein  laughed  boyishly.  ''You  needn't  make  a 
mystery  of  it  with  me,  Mr.  Ford.  I'm  one  of  the  family, 
if  I  haven't  any  initials  after  my  name.  I  know — we  all 
know — that  there  are  certain  profits — not  made  out  of 


HURRY    ORDERS  137 

the  company,  of  course — that  a  contractor  is  always 
willing  to  share  with  his  good  friends,  the  engineers." 

Ford's  attitude  instantly  became  that  of  a  freshman 
wishing  to  learn  the  ropes. 

"Consider  me,  Mr.  Eckstein,"  he  said.  "I'm  new  to 
the  construction  business — or  at  least,  I've  never  been  at 
the  head  of  it  before.  What  are  these — er — perquisites  ?" 

The  private  secretary  thought  he  had  entered  the 
thin  edge  of  the  wedge  and  he  drove  it  heartily. 

"They  are  perfectly  legitimate,  of  course.  The  con 
tractors  run  a  commissary  to  supply  the  workmen — 
nobody  suspects  them  of  doing  it  at  cost.  Then  there 
are  the  fines  imposed  to  secure  faithful  work,  the  per 
capita  commission  paid  on  the  labor  sent  in  by  the  en 
gineers,  the  discounts  on  time-checks,  the  weekly  hospi 
tal  and  insurance  dues  collected  from  the  men.  All 
those  things  amount  to  a  good  round  profit  on  a  con 
tract  like  ours." 

"To  about  how  much,  in  figures,  should  you  say?" 
queried  Ford,  with  an  air  of  the  deepest  interest. 

"To  enough  to  make  your  share,  as  head  of  the  con 
struction  department,  touch  ten  thousand  a  year,  on  a 
job  as  big  as  ours — with  a  liberal  provision  for  Mr. 
Frisbie,  besides." 

Ford  blew  reflective  smoke  rings  toward  the  ceiling  for 
a  full  minute  or  more  before  he  said  quietly:  "Do  I 
understand  that  you  are  authorized  to  guarantee  me  ten 


138  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

thousand  a  year  in  commissions  from  the  MacMorrogh 
Brothers,  Mr.  Eckstein?" 

Eckstein  laughed. 

"You  forget  that  I'm  only  a  clerk,  and  an  onlooker, 
as  you  may  say.  But  if  you  accept  MacMorrogh's  bid, 
and  he  doesn't  do  the  square  thing  by  you  and  Mr. 
Frisbie,  you  may  call  me  in  as  a  witness,  Mr.  Ford. 
Does  that  clear  up  the  doubt  ?" 

"Perfectly,"  was  the  quiet  rejoinder.  "Under  these 
conditions,  I  suppose  it  is  up  to  me  to  wire  the  executive 
committee,  withdrawing  my  objections  to  the  MacMor- 
roghs,  isn't  it?" 

"That  is  the  one  thing  Mr.  MacMorrogh  asks."  The 
secretary  whipped  out  a  note-book  and  pencil.  "Shall 
I  take  your  message?  I  can  send  it  when  I  go  back  to 
the  office." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Ford;  then  he  began  to  dictate, 
slowly  and  methodically:  "To  S.  J.  Colbrith,  care  Mc 
Veigh  and  Mackie,  New  York.  This  is  to  recall  my  ob 
jections  to  MacMorrogh  Brothers,  as  stated  in  letter  of 
the  twenty-fifth  from  Chicago.  Further  investigation 
develops  the  fact  that  they  are  quite  honest  and  capable, 
and  that  they  will  pay  me  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year 
for  withdrawing  my  opposition." 

Eckstein's  pencil  had  stopped  and  he  was  gasping  for 
breath. 

"Great  Scott!"  he  ejaculated.    "That  won't  do,  Mr. 


Eckstein's  pencil  had  stopped  and  he  was  gasping  for  breath      Page  138 


HURRY    ORDERS  139 

Ford !  You  can't  put  a  thing  like  that  into  a  telegram  to 
the  president !" 

"Why  not?"  was  the  cool  inquiry.  "You  said  it  was 
perfectly  legitimate,  didn't  you  ?" 

"Yes,  but — "  the  entrance  of  a  waiter  to  clear  the 
table  provided  a  merciful  stop-gap,  and  Eckstein,  hur 
riedly  consulting  his  watch,  switched  abruptly.  "By 
Jove!  I'm  due  at  the  office  this  minute  to  meet  a  lot 
of  cattlemen,"  he  stammered,  and  escaped  like  a  man 
hastening  for  first  aid  to  the  mistaken. 

Ford  laughed  long  and  silently  when  he  found  him 
self  alone  in  the  private  dining-room ;  and  he  was  still 
chuckling  by  fits  and  starts  when,  after  an  afternoon 
spent  with  Auditor  Evans,  he  recounted  his  adventure 
to  Frisbie  over  the  Brown  cafe  dinner  table  that  even 
ing.  But  Frisbie  took  all  the  humor  out  of  the  luncheon 
episode  when  he  said  soberly : 

"He  laughs  best  who  laughs  last,  Stuart.  Eckstein 
took  a  fall  out  of  you  one  way,  even  if  he  did  fail  in  the 
other;  he  kept  you  safely  shut  up  at  Tortoni's  while 
Mr.  North  and  the  chief  of  the  MacMorroghs  got  away 
on  a  special  train  for  New  York.  Beard,  the  Union 
Station  operator,  told  me.  Which  means  that  they'll 
have  a  full  day  with  Mr.  Colbrith  and  the  executive 
committee  before  you  can  possibly  get  there  to  butt  in." 

"N"o,  it  doesn't;  necessarily/'  Ford  contradicted,  ris 
ing  suddenly  and  signaling  a  waiter. 


140.  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  queried  Frisbie,  drop 
ping  his  knife  and  fork  and  preparing  to  second  his 
chief. 

"Come  and  see.  I'm  going  to  get  out  another  special 
train  and  give  Mr.  North  a  run  for  his  money,"  was  the 
incisive  answer.  "Hike  down  to  the  despatched  office 
with  me  and  help  cut  out  the  minutes." 


XII 


THE  ENTERING  WEDGE 

Has  civilized  humanity,  in  the  plenitude  of  twen 
tieth  century  sophistication,  fully  determined  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  luck? — that  all  things  are  ordered, 
if  not  by  Providence,  at  least  by  an  unchangeable  se 
quence  of  cause  and  effect  ? 

Stuart  Ford  was  a  firm  believer  in  the  luck  of  the 
energetic;  which  is  to  say  that  he  regarded  obstacles 
only  as  things  to  be  beaten  down  and  abolished.  But  in 
the  dash  to  overtake  and  pass  the  general  manager's  one- 
C5T  ^ecial,  the  belief  was  shaken  almost  to  its  reversal. 

He  knew  the  Pacific  Southwestern  locomotives — and 
something  of  the  men  who  ran  them.  The  1016  was  one 
of  the  fast  eight-wheelers ;  and  Olson,  the  engineer,  who 
had  once  pulled  passenger  on  the  Plug  Mountain,  was 
loyal  and  efficient.  Happily,  both  the  man  and  the  ma 
chine  were  available;, and  while  Frisbie  was  calling  up 
the  division  superintendent  at  his  house  to  ask  the  loan 

141 


U2  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

of  his  private  car  for  the  assistant  to  the  president, 
Ford  was  figuring  the  schedule  with  the  despatches  and 
insisting  upon  speed — more  speed. 

"What's  come  over  you  big  bosses,  all  at  once?"  said 
Darby,  to  whom  Ford's  promotion  was  no  bar  to  fellow 
ship  or  free  speech.  "First  Mr.  North  wants  me  to 
schedule  a  special  that  will  break  the  record;  and  now 
you  want  to  string  one  that  will  beat  his  record." 

"Never  mind  my  troubles,  Julius,"  was  the  evasive 
reply.  "Just  you  figure  to  keep  things  out  of  my  way 
and  give  me  a  clear  track.  Let's  see — where  were  we? 
Cheyenne  Crossing  at  2  A.  MV  water  at  Riddle  Creek, 
coal  at  Brockton — " 

The  schedule  was  completed  when  Frisbie  came  back 
to  say  that  the  1016,  with  the  superintendent's  car  at 
tached,  was  waiting  on  track  Six.  Ford  went  down, 
looked  the  gift  horse  in  the  mouth,  and  had  the  running 
gear  of  the  car  overhauled  under  his  own  supervision 
before  he  would  give  Olson  the  word  to  go,  pressing  the 
night  car  inspectors  into  service  and  making  them  re 
pack  the  truck  journals  while  he  waited. 

"I'm  taking  no  chances,"  he  said  to  Frisbie ;  and  truly 
it  seemed  that  all  the  hindrances  had  been  carefully 
forestalled  when  he  finally  boarded  the  "01"  and  ordered 
his  flagman  to  give  Olson  the  signal.  Yet  before  the  one- 
car  train  was  well  out  of  the  Denver  yards  there  was  a 
jolting  stop,  and  the  flagman  came  in  to  report  that  the 


THE    ENTERING    WEDGE  143 

engine  had  dropped  from  the  end  of  an  open  switch, 
blocking  the  main  line. 

Ford  got  out  and  directed  the  reenrailment  of  the 
1016,  carefully  refraining  from  bullying  the  big  Swede, 
whose  carelessness  must  have  been  accountable.  It  was 
the  simplest  of  accidents,  with  nothing  broken  or  disa 
bled.  Under  ordinary  conditions,  fifteen  minutes  should 
have  covered  the  loss  of  time.  But  the  very  haste  with 
which  the  men  wrought  was  fatal.  Enrailing  frogs  have 
a  way  of  turning  over  at  the  critical  instant  when  the 
wheels  are  climbing,  and  jack-screws  bottomed  on  the 
tie-ends  do  not  always  hold. 

Eight  several  times  were  the  jack-screws  adjusted 
and  the  frogs  clamped  into  position ;  but  not  until  the 
ninth  trial  could  the  perverse  wheels  be  induced  to  roll 
workmanlike  up  the  inclined  planes  and  into  place  on 
the  rails.  Ford  looked  at  his  watch  when  his  special 
was  free  of  the  switches  and  Olson  was  speeding  up  on 
the  first  long  tangent.  With  the  chase  still  in  its  open 
ing  mile,  Mr.  North's  lead  had  been  increased  from 
seven  hours  to  eight. 

Leaving  Denver  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  Ford 
had  necessarily  left  many  things  at  a  standstill;  and 
his  first  care,  after  he  had  assured  himself  that  the  race 
was  fairly  begun,  was  to  write  out  a  handful  of  tele 
grams  designed  to  keep  the  battle  alive  during  his  en 
forced  absence  from  the  firing  line.  The  superintend- 


144:  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

ent's  desk  was  hospitably  unlocked,  and  for  a  busy; 
half-hour  Ford  filled  blank  after  blank,  steadying  him 
self  against  the  pounding  swing  of  the  heavily  ballasted 
car  with  a  left-handed  grip  on  the  desk  end.  When  there 
remained  no  one  else  to  remind,  he  wrote  out  a  message 
to  Adair,  forecasting  the  threatened  disaster,  and  urging 
the  necessity  of  rallying  the  reconstructionists  on  the 
board  of  directors. 

"That  ought  to  stir  him  up/'  he  said  to  himself, 
bunching  Adair's  telegram  with  the  others  to  be  sent 
from  the  first  stop  where  the  Western  Union  wires 
could  be  tapped.  Then  he  whirled  around  in  the  swing 
chair  and  scowled  up  at  the  little  dial  in  the  end  of  the 
car ;  scowled  at  the  speed -recorder,  and  went  to  the  door 
to  summon  the  flagman. 

"What's  the  matter  with  Olson?"  he  demanded.  "Has 
he  forgotten  how  to  run  since  he  left  the  Plug  Moun 
tain?  Climb  up  over  the  coal  and  tell  him  that  forty 
miles  an  hour  won't  do  for  me  to-night." 

The  flagman  picked  up  his  lantern  and  went  forward ; 
and  in  a  minute  or  two  later  the  index  finger  of  the 
speed-recorder  began  to  mount  slowly  toward  the  fifties. 
At  fifty-two  miles  to  the  hour,  Ford,  sitting  in  the  obser 
vation  end  of  the  car  where  he  could  see  the  ghostly 
lines  of  the  rails  reeling  backward  into  the  night, 
smelled  smoke — the  unmistakable  odor  of  burning  oil. 
In  three  strides  he  had  reached  the  rear  platform,  and 


THE    ENTERING    WEDGE  145 

a  fourth  to  the  right-hand  railing  showed  him  one  of 
the  car-boxes  blazing  to  heaven. 

He  pulled  the  cord  of  the  air-whistle,  and  after  the 
stop  stood  by  in  sour  silence  while  the  crew  repacked  the 
hot  box.  Since  he  had  made  the  car  inspectors  carefully 
overhaul  the  truck  gear  in  the  Denver  station,  there 
was  no  one  to  swear  at.  Olson  bossed  the  job,  did  it 
neatly  and  in  silence,  and  no  one  said  anything  when  the 
fireman,  in  his  haste  to  be  useful,  upset  the  dope-kettle 
and  got  its  contents  well  sanded  before  he  had  overtaken 
it  in  its  rolling  flight  down  the  embankment. 

Ford  turned  away  and  climbed  into  his  car  at  the 
dope-kettle  incident.  There  are  times  when  retreat  is 
the  only  recipe  for  self-restraint;  and  in  imagination 
he  could  see  the  general  manager's  special  ticking  off 
the  miles  to  the  eastward  while  his  own  men  were  sweat 
ing  over  the  thrice-accursed  journal-bearing  under  the 
"01." 

Now,  as  every  one  knows,  hot  boxes,  besides  being* 
perversely  incurable,  are  the  sworn  enemies  of  high 
speed.  At  forty  miles  to  the  hour  the  journal  was  smok 
ing  again.  At  forty-five  it  burst  into  flames.  Once  more 
it  was  patiently  cooled  by  bucketings  of  water  drawn 
from  the  engine  tank ;  after  which  necessary  preliminary 
Olson  spoke  his  mind. 

"Ay  tank  ve  never  get  someveres  vit  dat  hal-fer-damn 
brass,  Meester  Ford.  Ay  yust  see  if  Ay  can't  find  'noder 


146  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

wone."  And  he  rummaged  in  the  car  lockers  till  he  did 
find  another. 

Unfortunately,  however,  the  spare  brass  proved  to  be 
of  the  wrong  pattern ;  a  Pullman,  instead  of  a  P.  S-W. 
standard.  Olson  was  a  trained  mechanic  and  a  man  of 
resources,  and  he  chipped  and  filed  and  scraped  at  the 
misfit  brass  until  he  made  it  serve.  But  when  he  climbed 
again  to  the  cab  of  his  engine,  and  Ford  swung  up  to 
the  steps  of  the  car,  the  white  headlight  eye  of  an  east- 
bound  freight,  left  at  a  siding  a  full  hour's  run  to  the 
rear,  came  in  sight  from  the  observation  platform  of 
the  laboring  special. 

These  were  the  inauspicious  beginnings  of  the  pur 
suit;  and  the  middle  part  and  the  ending  varied  only 
in  degree.  All  the  way  up  to  midnight,  at  which  hour  a 
station  of  a  bigness  to  supply  a  standard  brass  was 
reached,  the  tinkered  journal-bearing  gave  trouble  and 
killed  speed.  Set  once  more  in  running  order  upon  its 
full  quota  of  sixteen  practicable  wheels,  the  special  had 
fallen  so  far  behind  its  Denver-planned  schedule  as  not 
only  to  be  in  the  way  of  everything  else  on  the  division, 
but  to  find  everything  else  in  its  way.  Ford  held  on 
stubbornly  until  the  lead  of  the  train  he  was  trying  to 
outrun  had  increased  to  twelve  hours.  Then  he  gave  it 
up,  directing  his  crew  to  turn  the  train  on  the  nearest 
"Y,"  and  to  ask  for  retracing  orders  to  Denver.  After 
which  he  went  to  bed  in  the  state-room  of  the  borrowed 


THE    ENTERING    WEDGE  147 

car,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  experience  was  a  man 
handsomely  beaten  by  the  perversity  of  insensate  things. 

The  request  for  the  retracing  orders  was  sent  from 
Coquina;  and  when  it  came  clicking  into  the  de- 
spatcher's  office  at  Denver,  a  sleep-sodden  young  man 
with  an  extinct  cigar  between  his  teeth  rose  up  out  of 
his  chair,  stretched,  yawned,  and  pointed  for  the  door. 

"Going  to  leave  us,  Mr.  Eckstein?"  said  the  trick 
despatcher  who  was  sitting  at  the  train  table. 

"Yes.  If  Mr.  Ford  has  changed  his  mind,  I  may  as 
well  go  home  and  go  to  bed." 

"Beckon  he  forgot  something,  and  has  to  come  back 
after  it?"  laughed  the  operator. 

"Maybe,"  said  the  private  secretary,  and  he  went  out, 
shutting  the  door  behind  him  with  the  bat-like  softness 
and  precision  that  was  his  distinguishing  character 
istic. 

The  sounders  were  clicking  monotonously  when  the 
trick  man  turned  to  the  relief  operator  who  was  check 
ing  Darby's  transfer  sheet. 

"What  do  you  suppose  Eckstein  was  up  to,  sitting 
here  all  night,  Jim  ?" 

"Give  it  up,"  said  the  relief  man.  "Ask  me  some 
thing  easy." 

"I'll  bet  a  hen  worth  fifty  dollars  I  can  guess.  He 
didn't  want  Mr.  Ford  to  make  time." 

The  relief  man  looked  up  from  his  checking. 


148  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"Why  ?  He  didn't  do  anything.  He  was  asleep  more'n 
half  the  time." 

"Don't  you  fool  yourself,"  said  the  other.  "He  heard 
every  word  that  came  in  about  that  hot  box.  And  if 
the  hot  box  hadn't  got  in  the  way,  I'll  bet  a  cockerel 
worth  seventy-five  dollars,  to  go  with  that  fifty-dollar 
hen,  that  he  would  have  tangled  me  up  somehow  till  I 
had  shuffled  a  freight  train  or  something  in  Mr.  Ford's 
way.  He's  Mr.  North's  man,  body  and  soul;  and  Mr. 
North  doesn't  love  Mr.  Ford." 

"Oh,  rats,  Billy!"  scoffed  the  relief  man,  getting  up 
to  fill  his  corn-cob  pipe  from  the  common  tobacco  bag. 
"You're  always  finding  a  nigger  in  the  wood-pile,  when 
there  isn't  any.  Say;  that's  201  asking  for  orders  from 
Calotte.  Why  don't  you  come  to  life  and  answer  'em?" 

Frisbie,  breakfasting  early  at  the  Brown  Palace  on 
the  morning  following  the  night  of  hinderings,  was 
more  than  astonished  when  Ford  came  in  and  took  the 
unoccupied  seat  at  the  table-f or-two. 

"Let  me  eat  first,"  said  the  beaten  one,  when  Frisbie 
would  have  whelmed  him  with  curious  questions;  and 
with  the  passing  of  the  cutlets  and  the  coffee  he  told 
the  tale  of  the  hindrances. 

"I  guess  it  was  foreordained  not  to  be,"  he  admitted, 
in  conclusion.  "We  tried  mighty  hard  to  bully  it 
through,  but  the  fates  were  too  many  and  too  busy 
for  us." 


THE    ENTERING   WEDGE  149 

"Tricks?"  suggested  Frisbie,  suspecting  North  of 
covering  his  flight  with  special  instructions  to  delay  a 
possible  pursuit. 

"Oh,  no;  nothing  of  that  sort:  just  the  cursed  de 
pravity  of  inanimate  things.  Every  man  concerned 
worked  hard  and  in  good  faith.  It  was  luck.  No  one  of 
us  happened  to  have  a  rabbit's  foot  in  his  pocket." 

"You  don't  believe  in  luck,"  laughed  the  assistant. 

"Don't  I  ?  I  know  I  used  to  say  that  I  didn't.  But 
after  last  night  I  can't  be  so  sure  of  it." 

"Well,  what's  the  cost  to  us?"  inquired  Frisbie,  com 
ing  down  out  of  the  high  atmosphere  of  the  super 
stitious  to  stand  upon  the  solid  earth  of  railway-building 
fact. 

"I  don't  know :  possibly  failure.  There  is  no  guessing 
what  sort  of  a  scheme  North  will  cook  up  when  he  and 
MacMorrogh  get  Mr.  Colbrith  cornered." 

"Oh,  it  can't  be  as  bad  as  that.  Take  it  at  the  worst — 
admitting  that  we  may  have  to  struggle  along  with  the 
MacMorroghs  for  our  general  contractors;  they  can't 
addle  the  egg  entirely,  can  they  ?" 

Ford  tabulated  it  by  length  and  breadth. 

"With  the  MacMorroghs  in  the  forefront  of  things 
to  steal  and  cheat  and  make  trouble  with  the  labor, 
and  Mr.  North  in  the  rear  to  back  them  up  and  to  re 
tard  matters  generally,  we  are  in  for  a  siege  to  which 
purgatory,  if  we  ever  go  there,  will  seem  restful,  Rich- 


150  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

ard,  my  son.  Our  one  weapon  is  my  present  ranking 
authority  over  the  general  manager.  If  he  ever  succeeds 
in  breaking  that,  you  fellows  in  the  field  would  better 
hunt  you  another  railroad  to  build." 

"It's  a  comfort  to  know  that  you  are  the  big  boss, 
Stuart.  North  can't  knock  you  out  of  that  when  it  comes 
to  a  show-down." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Ford,  whose  night  ride  had  made 
him  pessimistic.  "I  am  Mr.  Colbrith's  appointee,  you 
know — not  an  elected  officer.  And  what  Mr.  Colbrith 
has  done,  he  may  be  induced  to  undo.  Adair  has  been 
nay  backer  in  everything ;  but  while  he  is  the  best  fellow 
in  the  world,  he  is  continually  warning  me  that  he  may 
lose  interest  in  the  game  at  any  minute  and  drop  it.  He 
doesn't  care  a  rap  for  the  money-making  part  of  it — 
doesn't  have  to." 

"Wouldn't  Adair  be  a  good  safety-switch  to  throw  in 
front  of  Mr.  North  and  MacMorrogh  in  New  York  ?" 

Ford  nodded.  "I  thought  of  that  last  night,  and  sent 
a  wire.  We'll  hear  from  it  to-day." 

Frisbie  ate  through  the  remainder  of  the  breakfast 
in  silence.  Afterward,  at  the  pipe-lighting,  he  asked  if 
Ford's  wire  instructions  of  the  night  before  still  held 
good. 

"They  do,"  was  the  emphatic  reply.  "We  go  on  just 
as  if  nothing  had  happened,  or  was  due  to  happen.  You 
say  your  man  Crapsey  will  be  in  this  morning:  gather 


THE    ENTERING    WEDGE  151 

up  your  laborers  and  turn  the  Plug  Mountain  into  a 
standard-gauge  railroad  while  we  wait.  That's  all,  Dick ; 
all  but  one  word — hustle." 

"Hustle  it  is.  But  say :  you  were  going  to  give  me  a 
pointer  on  that  broad-gauging.  I've  been  stewing  over  it 
for  a  day  and  a  night,  and  I  don't  think  of  any  scheme 
that  won't  stop  the  traffic." 

"Don't  you?  That  is  because  you  haven't  mulled  over 
it  as  long  as  I  have.  In  the  first  place,  you  have  no 
curves  to  straighten  and  no  cross-ties  to  relay — our 
predecessors  having  set  the  good  example  of  using  stand 
ard  length  ties  for  their  three-foot  road.  String  your 
men  out  in  gangs  as  far  as  they'll  go,  and  swing  the 
three-foot  track,  as  a  whole,  ten  inches  out  of  center  to 
the  left.  You  can  do  that  without  stopping  trains,  can't 
you?" 

"Sure." 

"All  right.  When  you  swing,  spike  the  right-hand  rail 
lightly.  Then  string  your  gangs  again  and  set  a  line  of 
spikes  for  the  outside  of  the  standard-gauge  right-hand 
rail  straight  through  to  Saint's  Rest,  Got  that?" 

"Yes ;  I  guess  I've  got  it  all.  But  go  on." 

"Now  you  are  ready  for  the  grand-stand  play.  Call  in 
all  your  narrow-gauge  rolling  stock,  mass  your  men  at 
this  end  of  the  branch,  shove  the  right-hand  rail  over  to 
the  line  of  gauge  spikes  in  sections  as  long  as  your  force 
will  cover,  and  follow  up  with  a  standard-gauge  construe- 


152  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

tion  train  to  pick  up  the  men  and  carry  them  forward  as 
fast  as  a  section  is  completed.  If  you  work  it  systemat 
ically,  a  freight  train  could  leave  Denver  two  hours  be 
hind  your  track-gangs  and  find  a  practical  standard 
gauge  all  the  way  to  Saint's  Rest." 

"Of  course  V9  said  Frisbie,  in  workmanlike  disgust  for 
his  own  obtuseness.  "I'm  going  back  to  the  Tech  when 
your  railroad  is  finished  and  learn  a  few  things.  I 
couldn't  think  of  anything  but  the  old  Erie  Railroad 
scheme,  when  it  was  narrowed  down  from  the  six-foot 
gauge.  They  did  it  in  one  night ;  but  they  had  a  man  to 
every  second  cross-tie  over  the  whole  four  hundred  miles 
from  New  York  to  Buffalo." 

Ford  nodded,  adding : 

"And  we're  not  that  rich  in  labor.  By  the  way,  how 
are  the  men  coming  ?" 

"A  car-load  or  two,  every  little  while.  S'ay,  Stuart, 
you  must  have  had  a  rabbit's  foot  with  you  when  you 
touched  up  the  eastern  labor  agencies.  Every  other  rail 
road  in  this  neck  of  woods  is  skinned,  and  M'Grath  is 
having  the  time  of  his  life  trying  to  hold  our  levies  to 
gether.  There  is  a  small  army  of  them  under  canvas  at 
Saint's  Rest,  waiting  for  the  contractors,  and  another 
with  between  two  and  three  hundred  hands  camped  at 
the  mouth  of  the  canyon." 

Ford  knocked  the  ashes  from  his  pipe  so  hard  that  the 
pipestem  fell  in  two. 


THE    ENTEEING    WEDGE  153 

"Yes  !  all  waiting  on  Mr.  Colbrith's  leisurely  motions ! 
Well,  jump  in  on  the  Plug  Mountain.  That  will  utilize 
some  of  the  waste  for  a  few  days." 

Frisbie  went  down  to  the  Plug  Mountain  yard  office, 
and  to  a  wire-end,  to  begin  the  marshaling  of  his  forces ; 
and  Ford,  with  three  picked-up  stenographers  to  madden 
him,  took  up  the  broken  threads  of  his  correspondence 
with  a  world  which  seemed  to  have  become  suddenly 
peopled  to  suffocation  with  eager  sellers  of  railroad  ma 
terial  and  supplies. 

Late  in  the  afternoon,  when  he  was  tired  enough  to 
feel  the  full  force  of  the  blow,  a  New  York  telegram 
came.  It  was  from  Miss  Alicia  Adair,  and  Ford  groaned 
in  spirit  when  he  read  it. 

Brother  left  here  yesterday  in  the  Vanderdecken  yacht  for 
Nova  Scotia.  Can  not  reach  him  by  telegraph  until  next  Fri 
day  or  Saturday.  Aunt  Hester  wants  to  know  if  there  is  any 
thing  she  can  do. 

One  way  to  save  a  man's  life  at  a  crisis  is  to  appeal  to 
his  sense  of  humor.  Miss  Alicia's  closing  sentence  did 
that  for  Ford,  and  he  was  smiling  grimly  when  he  put 
the  telegram  away,  not  in  the  business  file,  but  in  his 
pocket. 

Three  days  later,  however,  when  Frisbie  was  half-way 
to  Saint's  Eest  with  his  preliminary  track-swinging,  an 
other  New  York  telegram  found  Ford  in  his  newly 
established  quarters  in  the  Guaranty  Building.  This  was 


154  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

from  some  one  acting  as  President.  Colbrith's  secretary, 
and  its  wording  was  concisely  mandatory. 

Contract  has  been  awarded  MacMorrogh  Brothers.  Presi 
dent  directs  that  you  afford  contractors  every  facility,  and 
that  you  confer  with  Mr.  North  in  all  cases  of  doubt. 


XIII 


THE   BARBARIANS 


It  was  some  little  time  after  the  rock  had  begun  to  fly 
from  the  cuttings  on  the  western  slopes  of  the  moun 
tains  that  Kenneth,  summoned  by  Ford,  made  the  run 
from  Denver  to  Saint's  Best  over  the  standardized  Plug 
Mountain  branch  and  found  the  engineer-manager  liv 
ing  in  a  twenty-foot  caboose  car  fitted  as  a  hotel  and  an 
office-on-wheels. 

The  occasion  of  Kenneth's  calling  was  a  right-of-way 
dispute  on  the  borders  of  the  distant  Copah  mining  dis 
trict  ;  some  half-dozen  mining  claims  having  been  staked 
off  across  the  old  S.  L.  &  W.  survey.  The  owners,  keen 
to  make  a  killing  out  of  the  railroad  company,  threat 
ened  injunctions  if  the  P.  S-W.  persisted  in  trespassing 
upon  private  property;  and  Ford,  suspecting  shrewdly 
that  the  mine  men  were  set  on  by  the  Transcontinental 
people  to  delay  the  work  on  the  new  line,  made  haste  to 
shift  his  responsibility  to  the  legal  shoulders. 

"If  I  hadn't  known  you  for  a  pretty  good  mountain- 
155 


156  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

eer,  Kenneth,  you  would  have  missed  this/'  he  said,  mak 
ing  his  guest  free  of  the  limited  hospitality  of  the 
caboose-hotel.  "Are  you  good  for  a  two-hundred-and- 
eighty-mile  cayuse  ride,  there  and  back,  on  the  same  trail 
we  tramped  over  a  year  ago  last  spring  ?" 

"I'm  good  for  everything  on  the  bill  of  fare/'  was  the 
heartening  reply.  "How  are  things  going  ?" 

Ford's  rejoinder  began  with  a  non-committal  shrug. 
"We're  building  a  railroad,  after  a  fashion." 

"After  a  good  fashion,  I  hope  ?" 

Another  shrug. 

"We're  doing  as  well  as  we  can  with  the  help  we  have. 
But  about  this  right-of-way  tangle — "  and  he  plunged 
his  guest  into  a  discussion  of  the  Copah  situation  which 
ran  on  unbroken  until  bedtime. 

They  took  the  westward  trail  together  in  the  morning, 
mounted  upon  wiry  little  mountain-bred  ponies  fur 
nished  by  one  Pacheco,  the  half-breed  Mexican  who  had 
once  earned  an  easy  double-eagle  by  spying  upon  two 
men  who  were  out  hunting  with  an  engineer's  transit. 
For  seven  weeks  Frisbie  had  been  pushing  things,  and 
the  grade  from  Saint's  Rest  to  the  summit  of  the  pass 
was  already  a  practicable  wagon  road,  deserted  by  the 
leveling  squads  and  ready  for  the  ties  and  the  steel. 

From  the  summit  of  the  pass  westward,  down  the 
mountain  and  through  the  high-lying  upper  valley  of 
the  Pannikin,  the  grade  work  was  in  full  swing.  The 


THE    BARBAEIANS  157 

horse  trail,  sometimes  a  rough  cart-road,  but  oftener  a 
mere  bridle-path,  followed  the  railroad  in  its  loopings 
and  doublings ;  and  on  the  mountain  sections  where  the 
work  was  heaviest  the  two  riders  were  never  out  of  sight 
of  the  heavily  manned  grading  gangs. 

"To  a  man  up  a  tree  you  appear  to  be  doing  a  whole 
lot,  and  doing  it  quickly,  Ford/'  commented  the  lawyer, 
when  they  had  passed  camp  after  camp  of  the  workers. 
Then  he  added :  "You  are  not  having  any  trouble  with 
the  MacMorroghs,  are  you  ?" 

"Not  what  the  legal  department  would  call  trouble," 
answered  Ford  evasively;  and  for  ten  other  miles  the 
narrowness  of  the  bridle-path  discouraged  conversation. 

Farther  down  in  the  valley  of  the  Pannikin  the  ac 
tivities  were  less  thickly  sown.  On  many  sections  the 
work  was  light;  no  more  than  the  throwing  up  of  an 
embankment  in  the  park-like  intervales,  with  now  and 
then  a  rock-  or  earth-cutting  through  some  jutting  spur 
of  the  inclosing  mountains.  Here  the  men  were  bunched 
on  the  rock  work  and  the  fills,  though  the  camp  sites 
were  commonly  in  the  park-like  interspaces  where  wood 
and  water,  the  two  sole  commodities  for  which  the  con 
tractors  could  make  no  deductions  on  the  pay-roll,  lay 
conveniently  at  the  doors  of  the  rude  sleeping  shacks. 

Since  he  was  not  required  to  talk,  Kenneth  had  time 
to  be  curiously  observant  of  many  things  in  passing. 
Each  camp  was  the  fellow  of  its  neighbor;  a  chaotic 


158  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

collection  of  hastily  built  bunk  shanties,  a  mess  tent  for 
those  who,,  shunning  the  pay-devouring  Scylla  of  the 
contractors'  "commissary,"  fell  into  the  Charybdis  of  the 
common  table,  and  always,  Kenneth  remarked,  the  camp 
groggery,  with  its  slab-built  bar,  its  array  of  ready-filled 
pocket  bottles,  and  its  sad-faced,  slouch-hatted,  pistol- 
carrying  keeper. 

"What  is  that  Bible-saying  about  the  shadow  of  a 
great  rock  in  a  thirsty  land?"  said  Kenneth,  as  they 
were  passing  one  of  the  wilderness  bar-rooms  buttress 
ing  a  huge  boulder  by  the  trail  side.  "I  should  think 
you'd  rule  those  fellows  emphatically  and  peremptorily 
out  of  the  game,  Ford.  They  must  make  a  lot  of  trouble 
for  you,  first  and  last." 

"They  do,"  was  the  sober  response.  "But  how  would 
you  go  about  it  to  rule  them  out  ?" 

The  lawyer  laughed.  "My  writs  don't  run  this  far. 
But  I  thought  yours  did.  Why  don't  you  fire  'em  bodily ; 
tell  'em  their  number  is  23 — skiddoo!  Aren't  you  the 
Sublime  Porte — the  court  of  last  resort — the  big  boss — 
over  here  ?" 

Ford  pulled  his  horse  down  to  a  walk. 

"Kenneth,  let  me  tell  you:  behind  those  barkeepers 
are  the  contractors ;  behind  the  contractors  is  Mr.  North ; 
behind  Mr.  North,  the  president.  My  little  lever  isn't 
long  enough  to  turn  the  world  over." 

"Pshaw!"   said    Kenneth.     "Mr.    Colbrith   wouldn't 


THE    BAKBAKIANS  159 

stand  for  anything  like  that !  Why,  he's  a  perfect  fanatic 
on  the  whisky  question." 

"That's  all  right/'  said  Ford  acidly.    "It  doesn't  go 
as  far  as  Mr.  Colbrith  in  the  matter  of  the  debauching 
particulars.    It  stops  in  Denver;  and  Mr.  Colbrith  ap 
proves  Denver  in  the  lump — signs  the  vouchers  without 
looking  at  them,  as  Evans  would  say.   I  tell  you  what  I 
believe — wiiat  I  am  compelled  to  believe.  These  individ 
ual  saloon-keepers  are  supposed  to  be  in  here  on  their 
own  hook,  on  sufferance.  They  are  not;  they  are  merely 
the  employees  of  a  close  corporation.   Among  the  profit 
sharers  you'll  find  the  MacMorroghs  at  the  top,  and  Mr. 
North's  little  ring  of  Denver  ofiicials  close  seconds." 
"Do  you  honestly  believe  that,  Ford?" 
"I  do.  I  can't  prove  it,  of  course.   If  I  could,  I'd  go 
to  New  York  and  fight  it  out.  And  the  whisky  isn't  all 
of  it,  or  even  the  worst :  there  are  women  in  some  of  these 
camps,  and  there  would  be  more  if  Leckhard  didn't 
stand  guard  at  Saint's  Eest  and  turn  them  back." 

"Heavens — what  a  cesspool!"  said  the  attorney. 
"Does  a  laboring  man  ever  get  out  of  here  with  any  of 
his  earnings?" 

"Not  if  the  MacMorroghs  can  help  it.  And  you  can 
figure  for  yourself  what  the  moral  atmosphere  must  be. 
We  are  less  than  two  months  old  on  the  work,  but  already 
the  Western  Extension  is  a  streak  of  crime;  crime  un 
punished,  and  at  times  tacitly  encouraged.  You  may 


160  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

say  that  my  department  isn't  responsible — that  this  is 
the  contractors'  day  and  game.  If  that  is  true  now — 
which  it  isn't — it  will  no  longer  be  true  when  we  come 
in  with  our  own  employees,  the  track-layers." 

But  now  Kenneth  was  shaking  his  head. 

"I  can't  believe  it,  Ford.  You're  blue  because  Mr. 
Colbrith  has  thrown  Mr.  North  into  your  boat  as  ballast. 
I  don't  blame  you:  but  you  mustn't  let  it  make  you 
color-blind." 

Ford  said  nothing.  The  day  was  yet  young,  and  the 
long  journey  was  still  younger.  It  was  at  the  noon  halt, 
made  at  a  subcontractor's  camp  near  a  great  earth-cut 
ting  and  a  huge  fill,  that  Kenneth  had  his  object  lesson. 

They  were  standing  at  the  door  of  the  timekeeper's 
shanty — they  had  been  the  timekeeper's  guests  for  the 
noon  meal — and  the  big  gang  of  Italians,  with  its  in 
evitable  Irish  foreman,  was  already  at  work.  Out  at  the 
head  of  the  great  fill  a  dozen  men  were  dumping  the 
carts  as  they  came  in  an  endless  stream  from  the  cutting. 
Suddenly  there  was  a  casting  down  of  shovels,  a  shrill 
altercation,  a  clinch,  a  flash  of  steel  in  the  August  sun 
light,  and  one  of  the  disputants  was  down,  his  heels 
drumming  on  the  soft  earth  in  the  death  agony. 

"Good  God!"  said  Kenneth.  "It's  a  murder!"  and  he 
would  have  rushed  in  if  Ford  and  the  timekeeper  had 
not  held  him  back. 

The  object  lesson  was  sufficiently  shocking,  but  its 


THE   BARBARIANS  161 

sequel  was  still  more  revolting.  Without  one  to  kneel 
beside  the  dying  man;  indeed,  without  waiting  until  the 
drumming  heels  were  still ;  the  men  callously  put  their 
shovels  under  the  body,  slid  it  over  the  lip  of  the  dump 
and  left  it  to  be  covered  by  the  tumbling  cataract  of 
earth  pouring  from  the  tip-carts  whose  orderly  proces 
sion  had  scarcely  been  interrupted  by  the  tragedy. 

Kenneth  was  silent  for  many  minutes  after  they  had 
left  the  camp  of  the  Italians.  He  was  a  Western  man 
only  by  adoption;  of  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  and  so  unable 
to  condone  the  Latin's  disregard  for  the  sacredness  of 
human  life. 

"That  was  simply  terrible,  Ford,"  he  said  finally,  and 
his  voice  was  still  in  sympathy  with  the  shaking  hand 
that  held  the  bridle-reins.  "Will  nothing  be  done?" 

"Nothing;  unless  the  murdered  man  chances  to  have 
relatives  or  clansmen  in  one  of  the  near-by  camps — in 
which  case  there'll  be  another  killing." 

"But  the  law,"  said  Kenneth. 

"There  is  no  law  here  higher  than  the  caprice  of  Brian 
MacMorrogh.  Besides,  it's  too  common — a  mere  episode ; 
one  of  those  which  you  said  you  couldn't  believe,  a  little 
while  back." 

"But  can't  you  make  the  MacMorroghs  do  a  little 
police  work,  for  common  decency's  sake  ?" 

Ford  shook  his  head.  "They  are  quite  on  the  other 
side  of  the  fence,  as  I  told  you  in  the  beginning.  By 


162  EMPIKE    BUILDERS 

winking  at  lawlessness  of  all  kinds,  their  own  particular 
brands  of  lawlessness,  by  which  they  and  their  backers 
make  money,  go  unquestioned.  So  far  from  helping, 
they'd  make  it  exceedingly  difficult  for  any  sheriff  who 
should  have  the  temerity  to  come  in  here  in  the  dis 
charge  of  his  duty." 

"You  foresaw  all  this  before  the  contract  was 
awarded  ?" 

"Not  all — though  I  had  been  told  that  the  MacMor- 
roghs  ran  'open  camps'  where  the  work  was  far  enough 
from  civilization  to  take  the  curse  off.  What  you've  seen, 
and  what  I've  been  telling  you,  is  bad  enough,  God 
knows;  but  it  will  be  worse  before  it  is  better.  After 
we've  had  a  few  pay-days,  and  the  men  begin  to  realize 
that  they  are  here  to  toil  and  to  be  robbed  .  .  .  Ken 
neth,  it  will  be  hell  on  earth ;  and  the  company  will  pay 
for  it — the  company  always  pays  in  the  end." 

"I've  got  a  notion,"  said  the  attorney,  after  another 
plodding  mile  of  reflection ;  but  what  it  was  he  did  not 
say. 

Ford  and  his  companion  reached  Copah  in  the  after 
noon  of  the  third  day  out  from  Saint's  Rest,  and,  sin 
gularly  enough,  the  mine  owners  who  were  disputing  the 
extension  right-of-way  were  found  amenable  to  reason. 
What  Kenneth  did  to  secure  the  P.  S-W.  right-of-way 
across  the  mining  claims,  Ford  did  not  know,  or  seek  to 
know ;  though  a  word  or  two  let  fall  by  the  attorney  led 


THE    BAKBARIANS  163 

him  to  believe  that  the  Transcontinental  encourage 
ment  was  not  quite  specific  enough  in  dollars  and  cents 
to  warrant  the  obstructors  in  holding  out. 

Ford  was  for  starting  back  the  next  morning :  he  had 
missed  Brissac  and  both  of  the  Bensons  on  the  way  over. 
But  Kenneth  confessed  to  being  saddle-sore,  and  begged 
for  another  day's  respite.  Ford  agreed  without  giving 
the  matter  a  second  thought.  Upon  such  unconsidered 
trifles — an  indifferent  "yes"  or  "no" — turn  the  poised 
scales  of  life.  For  one  other  day  the  two  Southwestern 
representatives  put  up  at  the  Grand  Union,  Copah's 
tar-paper-covered  simulacrum  of  a  hotel;  and  during 
that  day  Ford  contrived  to  sell  his  birthright  for  what 
he,  himself,  valued  at  the  moment  as  a  mess  of  pottage. 

It  was  in  this  wise.  At  this  period  of  its  existence 
Copah,  the  future  great,  was  merely  a  promise ;  a  camp 
of  magnificent  prospects.  Isolated  by  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  of  wagon-road  and  pack-trail  from  one 
railroad  base,  and  by  forty  miles  of  mountains  from  the 
other,  its  future  turned  upon  the  hope  of  cheaper  trans 
portation.  As  a  gold  camp  it  was  an  anomaly.  With  a 
single  exception  its  ores  were  low  grade,  and  the  wagon- 
road  and  pack-trail  freightage  made  them  practically 
profitless  to  the  miners. 

The  single  exception  was  the  "Little  Alicia,"  and  it 
was  the  coincidence  of  the  name,  rather  than  the  elo 
quence  of  its  impoverished  owner,  that  first  attracted 


164  EMPIEE   BUILDERS 

Ford.  From  first  to  last  he  did  not  know  the  exact  loca 
tion  of  the  mine.  It  was  somewhere  in  the  hills  back  of 
Copah,  and  Grigsby,  the  prospector  who  had  discovered 
and  opened  it,  had  an  office  in  the  camp. 

It  was  in  Grigsby's  town  office  that  Ford  saw  the  ore 
specimens  and  the  certified  assays,  and  listened  not  too 
credulously  to  Grigsby's  enthusiastic  description  of  the 
Little  Alicia.  To  be  a  half -owner  in  this  mine  of  mines 
was  to  be  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice — when  the 
railroad  should  come :  if  one  might  take  Grigsby's  word 
for  it. 

It  is  a  curious  fever,  that  which  seizes  upon  the  new 
comer  in  an  unexploited  mining  field.  Ford  was  far 
from  being  money-mad;  but  there  were  times  when  he 
could  not  help  contrasting  a  railroad  salary  with  Miss 
Adair's  millions.  True,  he  had  once  said  to  her,  in  the 
fulness  of  confident  belief,  that  the  money  of  the 
woman  he  loved  would  make  no  difference — to  her  or 
to  him.  But  the  point  of  view,  wise  or  foolish,  is  not 
always  the  same.  There  were  moments  when  the  Adair 
millions  loomed  large,  and  the  salary  of  an  assistant  to 
the  president — who  was  in  fact  little  more  than  a  glori 
fied  chief  of  construction — shrank  in  proportion.  He  was 
free  of  obligation  and  foot-loose.  His  twenty  thousand 
dollars  invested  in  P.  S-W.  stock  at  twenty-nine  and  a 
half  had  grown  with  the  rising  market  to  sixty-odd. 
What  did  it  matter  to  any  one  if  he  chose  to  put  ten 


THE    BARBARIANS  165 

thousand  of  the  sixty-odd  on  a  turn  of  the  Little  Alicia 
card? 

While  it  was  gambling,,  pure  and  simple,  he  did  not 
bet  with  his  eyes  shut.  Inquiry  at  the  Bank  of  Copah 
established  Grigsby's  reputation  for  truth-telling.  The 
specimens  and  the  assay  certificates  were  beyond  doubt 
genuine.  More  than  this,  Grigsby  had  made  a  number 
of  ore  shipments  by  freighters'  wagon  and  jack  train 
over  the  range,  and  the  returns  had  enabled  him  to  keep 
a  small  force  of  men  at  work  in  the  mine. 

Ford  made  his  bet  through  the  bank.  The  cashier 
was  willing  to  take  a  P.  S-W.  official's  note  of  hand,  to 
be  canceled  when  Ford  could  deposit  to  the  bank's  credit 
in  Denver,  and  to  give  Grigsby  an  open  account  for  his 
immediate  needs.  Grigsby  accepted  joyfully,  and  the 
thing  was  done.  Ford's  mess  of  pottage  was  a  deed  of 
half-ownership  in  the  Little  Alicia,  executed  and  re 
corded  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  of  stop-overs,  and 
he  was  far  enough  from  suspecting  that  he  had  ex 
changed  for  it  all  that  a  man  of  honor  holds  dearest. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  birthright  had  not  yet  been 
handed  over :  that  came  later. 


xiv; 

THE  DRAW-BAR  PULL 

Attorney  Kenneth  had  many  more  object-lessons  in 
the  study  of  "open  camps"  on  the  three-day  return  ride 
to  Saint's  Eest.  The  day  of  stop-over  in  Copah  chanced 
to  be  the  MacMorrogh  Brothers'  monthly  pay-day,  and 
until  the  men's  money  was  spent  pandemonium  reigned 
along  the  line  of  the  extension. 

Some  of  it  they  dodged,  riding  wide  to  pass  the  larger 
camps,  and  hearing  from  afar  the  noise  of  carousal,  the 
fierce  drinking  songs  of  the  Magyars,  the  fusillades  of 
pistol-shots.  So  far  as  they  could  see,  all  work  appeared 
to  be  suspended ;  and  Major  Benson,  whose  camp  of  en 
gineers  they  picked  up  in  one  of  the  detours  around  a 
gulch  head,  confirmed  that  conclusion. 

"It  was  the  same  way  last  month,"  raged  the  major, 
twisting  his  fierce  white  mustaches  and  looking  as  if 
he  would  like  to  blot  the  name  of  MacMorrogh  from  the 
roster  of  humanity.  "It'll  take  a  full  week  to  get  them 
into  the  swing  again,  and  MacMorrogh  will  be  up  with 

166 


THE    DRAW-BAR    PULL  167 

his  estimates  just  the  same  as  if  he  had  been  working  full 
time.  I'll  cut  'em ;  by  the  gods,  I'll  cut  'em !  And  you 
must  stand  by  me,  Mr.  Ford." 

There  was  the  same  story  to  be  listened  to  at  Brissac's 
tie  camp;  and  again  at  young  Benson's  headquarters, 
which  were  on  the  mountain  section.  This  last  was  on 
the  third  day,  however,  when  the  madness  was  dying 
down.  Some  of  the  rock  men  were  back  on  the  job,  but 
many  of  the  gangs  were  still  grievously  short-handed. 
Ford  said  little  to  Kenneth.  The  pandemonium  spoke 
for  itself.  But  on  the  third  night,  when  the  long  ride 
was  ended,  and  Pietro,  Ford's  cook  and  man-of-all-work, 
was  serving  supper  in  the  caboose  office-on-wheels,  some 
of  the  bitterness  in  Ford's  heart  slipped  into  speech. 

"Can  you  see  now  how  it  takes  the  very  marrow  out 
of  a  man's  bones,  Kenneth?  You  may  think  of  an  en 
gineer  as  a  man  of  purely  bull-headed  purposes,  merely 
trying,  in  a  crass,  materialistic  way,  to  get  a  material 
thing  done.  I  want  to  do  a  big  thing,  and  I'd  like  to  do 
it  in  a  big  way.  It  {5  a  big  thing — the  building  of  this 
extension.  If  it  doesn't  add  another  star  to  the  flag,  it 
will  at  least  make  one  state  twice  as  populous,  twice  as 
prosperous.  It  will  add  its  quota  to  the  habitable  sur 
faces;  and  it's  a  good  quota — a  land  that  some  future 
generation  will  love,  and  swear  by,  and  fight  for,  if  need 
be.  And  to  think  that  for  one  man's  narrow-mindedness 
and  another's  greed  we've  got  to  christen  it  in  blood 


[PIB1 


and  rnuek  and  filth  and  dishonesty  —  it  makes  me  gore, 
;  sore  and  disheartened  ." 

"J  don't  blame  you,"  eaid  the  lawyer,  reveling,  tho 
he  would  never  hare  admitted  it,  in  the  eornfV 

ose  headquarters  journey'*  end. 
through;  you'll  build  your  railroad,  ami 
that  are  made  won't  be  your  mistakes,   It's  a  horrible 
itate  of  affair.",  that  in  the  Mac}!- 
on  our  boasted  civilisation.   But  you  can't  help  it.    (H 
rather  you  will  help  it  if,  and  when,  you  can/' 

Ford  was  shaking  his  head  deject/ 

'  f  don't  know,  Ken  'i  getting  next  to  me,  even 

at  this  early  stage  of  BM  game.  Have  you  ever  stood  on 
the  front  car  platform  of  a  train  nearest  to  the  er 
?;-,  rafeM  HM  ftotfqg  fanMtarf    i?.  M  §pp«w»tly 
loose;  its  hold  on  the  engine  seems  to  he  no  more  • 
that  of  the  touch  of  clasped  hands  in  a  gipsy  dance.  Vet 
ft  never  lets  go,  and  the  drag  of  it  is  always  there.  By 
and  by,  when  the  coal  is  all  burned,  and  the  fire  is  out, 
and  the  water  i*  drained  f  r.  ink,  those  gentle 

'tiplied  jerks  will  pull  the  big  engine  down— 
kill  it—make  it  a  mere  mass  of  inert  metal  blocking  th<: 
way  of  progress." 

"Well  r  naid  the  attorney. 

"It's  an  allegory.  Fm  beginner  t/,  r;?jr 

pall.   Sooner  or  later,  North  and  hi*  diqne  will  drag 
me  down.   I  can't  fight  as  the  under  dog—  1  never 


THE     PK.UY-HAK     PULL 

learned  lunv  :  and  they've  fixed  it  so  thai  1  can't  tight  any 
other  way." 

Kenneth  had  lighted  his  cigar  and  was  lying  back 
against  tho  cushion  of  the  car-sent.  After  a  little,  ho 
said:  "Just  after  we  saw  the  Italian  killed  last  week  1 
told  you  1  had  a  notion.  Ford.  I've  got  it  yet.  and  l'\e 
been  turning  it  over  in  my  mind  and  wondering  if  I'd 
better  explode  it  on  you.  On  the  whole.  I  think  I'd  better 
not.  It's  a  vase  of  surgery.  If  the  patient  lives,  you'll 
know  about  it.  If  the  patient  dies,  you'll  be  no  \\ 
oil'  than  you  are  now.  Shall  we  let  it  vest  at  that  :" 

Ford  acquiesced.    He  was  too  utterly  disheartened 
be  curious.    Hut  if  he  could,  lv.  •  von  the  resul. 

Kenneth's  notion   it    is  conceivable  that   ho  would  have 
been  aroused  to  some  etTort  of  pr  even  in  deep 

waters  one  prays  sometimes   to  be  delivered   from  his 
friends. 

It  was  a  week  after  this  farewell  supper  in  the  oalv 
hotel  at   Saint's  Kest  when   Ford  went   down  to   IV 
to  borrow,  on  his  F.  S-\Y.  ttook,  the  ten  thousand  dollars 
to  be  deposited  to  the  credit  of  the  Hank  of  f  opah.    Fol 
lowing  him.  and  only  one  train  behind,  camo  Fi 
new  from  a  confirmatory  survey  of  the  extension  be- 
the  (Vpah  div, 

On  his  return  from  tho  l"!reen  Hut  to  end  of 
posed  lino,  tho  little  man  with  tho  diabolical  fashiev      ' 
beard  trimming  had  spcn;  in  and  around  Oopah, 


170  EMPIEE    BUILDERS 

picking  up  yard  rights-of-way,  surveying  approaches, 
and  setting  grade  stakes  for  the  outlying  MacMorrogh 
gangs.  During  that  week  he  had  made  a  discovery,  and 
since  he  believed  it  to  be  all  his  own,  he  journeyed  east 
ward  to  share  it  quickly  with  his  chief. 

Ford  was  dining  alone  at  the  Brown  Palace  when 
Frisbie,  coming  straight  from  the  Plug  Mountain  train, 
found  him.  There  was  an  entire  western  desert  to  be 
talked  over  during  the  courses,  and  Frisbie  held  his  dis 
covery  in  reserve  until  they  had  gone  to  smoke  in  a  quiet 
corner  of  the  great  rotunda.  Even  then  he  approached 
it  indirectly. 

"In  taking  up  the  line  down  the  Pannikin  we  have 
followed  the  old  S.  L.  &  W.  survey  pretty  closely  all  the 
way  from  start  to  finish.  What  were  your  reasons, 
Stuart  The  asked. 

"There  didn't  seem  to  be  any  good  reason  for  not  fol 
lowing  it.  Brandreth  made  the  S.  L.  &  W.  preliminary, 
and  there  isn't  a  better  locating  engineer  in  this  coun 
try." 

"I  know,"  said  Frisbie.  "But  the  best  of  us  make  mis 
takes,  now  and  then.  Brandreth  made  a  pretty  sizable 
one,  I  think." 

"How  is  that?" 

"You  know  where  the  big  rock-cutting  is  to  be  made 
in  the  lower  canyon,  about  ten  miles  this  side  of  the 
point  where  we  begin  to  swing  south  for  the  run  to 


THE    DRAW-BAR   PULL  171 

Copah — a  mile  and  a  half  of  heavy  work  thai  will  cost 
away  up  into  the  pictures  ?" 

"Yes ;  Fve  estimated  that  rock  work  at  not  a  cent  less 
than  two  hundred  thousand  dollars/' 

"You're  shy,  rather  than  over,  at  that.  And  two  hun 
dred  thousand  would  build  a  number  of  miles  of  ordi 
nary  railroad,  wouldn't  it?  But  that  isn't  all.  The 
cliffs  along  that  canyon  are  shale-topped  and  shale-un 
dermined,  the  shale  alternating  with  loose  rock  about 
fifty  feet  above  our  line  of  grade  in  quarter-mile 
stretches  all  along.  That  means  incessant  track-walking 
day  and  night  through  the  mile  and  a  half  of  cutting, 
and  afterward — for  all  time  afterward — a  construction 
train  kept  handy  under  steam  to  clear  away  debris  that 
will  never  quit  sliding  down  on  the  embankment." 

"I'm  afraid  you  are  right,"  said  Ford.  "It's  the  worst 
bit  on  the  entire  extension ;  the  most  costly  to  build,  as 
it  will  be  the  most  expensive  to  maintain.  But  I  guess 
Brandreth  knew  what  he  was  about  when  he  surveyed  it." 

"Brandreth  is  a  short-line  man.  He  wouldn't  lengthen 
his  line  ten  miles  to  dodge  an  earthquake.  Ford,  we 
can  save  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  on  that  piece  of 
track  in  first  cost — to  say  nothing  of  the  future." 

"How  ?  I'm  always  open  to  conviction." 

"By  leaving  the  S.  L.  &  W.  survey  at  Horse  Creek, 
following  up  to  the  low  divide  at  Emory's  Mine,  and 
crossing  to  enter  Copah  from  the  southeast  instead  of 


EMPIRE   BUILDERS 


from  the  northeast.  I  came  out  that  way  from  Copah 
five  days  ago.  It's  perfectly  feasible  ;  straight-away,  easy 
earth  work  for  the  greater  part,  and  the  only  objection 
is  that  it  adds  about  twelve  running  miles  to  the  length 
of  the  extension.  It's  for  you  to  say  whether  or  not  the 
added  distance  will  be  warranted  by  the  lessened  cost 
and  the  assurance  of  safety  in  operating.  If  we  cut 
through  that  lower  canyon  cliff  it  will  be  only  a  question 
of  time  until  we  bury  somebody,  no  matter  how  closely 
it  is  watched." 

Ford  took  time  to  consider  the  proposal.  There  were 
objections,  and  he  named  one  of  them. 

"The  MacMorroghs  have  based  their  bid  on  the  pres 
ent  survey  :  they  will  not  want  to  let  that  piece  of  rock 
work  drop  out  of  sight." 

"They'll  have  to,  if  you  say  so.  And  you  can  afford  to 
be  pretty  liberal  with  them  on  the  substituted  twelve 
miles." 

"I'll  have  to  think  about  it  over  night,"  was  Ford's 
final  answer.  "Arrange  to  give  me  an  hour  to-morrow 
morning  and  we'll  go  over  the  maps  and  your  notes  to 
gether." 

Frisbie  slept  soundly  on  the  gained  inch,  hoping  to 
make  it  the  coveted  ell  in  the  morning.  He  knew  the 
chief  objection,  which  was  that  Ford,  too,  was  a  "short- 
line"  engineer  ;  a  man  who  would  lay  down  his  railroad 
as  the  Czar  of  Russia  did  the  St.  Petersburg-Moscow 


THE    DRAW-BAK   PULL    .  173 

line — by  placing  a  ruler  on  the  map  and  drawing  a 
straight  mark  beside  it  between  the  two  cities — if  that 
were  an  American  possibility.  But  he  knew,  too,  that 
the  safety  clause  would  weigh  heavily  with  Ford,  and 
there  was  no  minimizing  the  danger  to  future  traffic  if 
the  canyon  route  should  be  retained. 

It  turned  out  finally  as  the  first  assistant  had  hoped 
and  believed  it  would.  Ford  spent  a  thoughtful  hour  at 
his  office  in  the  Guaranty  Building  before  Frisbie  came 
down — the  little  man  being  trail-weary  enough  to  sleep 
late  in  the  comfortable  room  at  the  Brown  Palace.  The 
slight  change  of  route  was  hardly  a  matter  to  be  carried 
up  to  the  executive  committee,  and  Ford's  decision 
turned  upon  quite  another  pivot — the  addition  of  twelve 
miles  of  distance.  As  against  this,  safety  and  economy 
won  the  day;  and  when  Frisbie  came  in  the  talk  was 
merely  of  ways  and  means. 

"Fix  up  the  change  with  the  MacMorroghs  the  best 
way  you  can,"  was  Ford's  concluding  instruction  to  his 
lieutenant.  "They  will  kick,  of  course;  merely  to  be 
kicking  at  anything  I  suggest.  But  you  can  bring  them 
to  terms,  I  guess." 

"By  my  lonesome?"  said  Frisbie.  "Aren't  you  going 
over  to  see  the  new  route  with  your  own  eyes  ?" 

"No.  I'm  perfectly  willing  to  trust  your  judgment, 
Dick.  Besides,  I've  got  other  fish  to  fry.  I'm  going  east 
to-night  to  have  one  more  tussle  with  the  steel  mills.  We 


174:  EMPIEE   BUILDEKS 

must  have  quicker  deliveries  and  more  of  them.  When 
I  get  back,  we'll  organize  the  track-layers  and  begin  to 
make  us  a  railroad." 

"Good/'  said  Frisbie,  gathering  up  his  maps  and 
sketches  of  the  detour  country;  and  so,  in  the  wording 
of  a  brief  sentence  or  two  it  came  to  pass  that  Ford  de 
livered  himself  bound  and  unarmed  into  the  hands  of 
his  enemies. 

A  little  light  was  thrown  upon  this  dark  passage  that 
night  in  the  office  of  the  general  manager,  after  Ford's 
train  had  gone  eastward,  and  Frisbie  was  on  his  way 
back  to  the  MacMorrogh  headquarters  on  the  lower 
Pannikin.  North  was  waiting  when  Eckstein  came  in, 
flushed  as  from  a  rapid  walk. 

"It's  all  settled?"  asked  the  general  manager,  with  a 
slow  lift  of  the  eyebrow  to  betray  his  anxiety. 

"To  the  queen's  taste,  I  should  say,"  was  the  secre 
tary's  not  too  deferential  reply.  "Ford's  out  of  the  way, 
to  be  gone  ten  days  or  a  fortnight,  and  Frisbie  has  gone 
back  to  dicker  with  MacMorrogh,  and  to  survey  the  new 
route  up  Horse  Creek.  Ford  doesn't  know;  I  doubt  if 
he  will  ever  know  until  we  spring  the  trap  on  him.  The 
one  thing  I  was  most  afraid  of  was  that  he  would  insist 
upon  going  over  the  new  line  himself.  Then,  of  course, 
he  would  have  found  out — he  couldn't  help  finding  out." 

The  general  manager  squared  his  huge  shoulders 
against  the  back  of  the  chair. 


THE    DRAW-BAK    PULL  175 

"You  think  he  would  call  it  off  if  he  knew?"  he 
queried.  "You  give  him  credit  for  too  much  virtue,  Eck 
stein.  But  I  think  we  have  him  now.  By  the  time  he 
returns  it  will  be  too  late  for  him  to  hedge.  MacMorrogh 
will  see  to  that/' 

Eckstein  nodded.  "I  made  a  point  of  that  with 
Brian/'  he  said.  "The  minute  the  word  is  given  he  is  to 
throw  a  little  army  of  graders  upon  the  new  roundabout. 
But  Ford  won't  find  out.  He'll  be  too  busy  on  this  end 
of  the  line  with  the  track-layers.  I'm  a  little  nervous 
about  Merriam,  though." 

"He's  the  man  who  talked  Frisbie  into  championing 
the  new  route  ?" 

"Yes.  He  did  it  pretty  skilfully :  made  Frisbie  think 
he  was  finding  it  out  himself,  and  never  let  the  little 
man  out  of  his  sight  while  they  were  in  Copah.  But  I 
am  afraid  Merriam  himself  knows  too  much." 

"Get  him  out  of  the  country — before  Ford  gets  back/' 
was  the  crisp  order.  "If  he  isn't  here  when  the  gun  goes 
off,  he  can't  tell  anybody  how  it  was  loaded." 

"An  appointment — "  Eckstein  began. 

"That  is  what  I  mean/'  said  the  general  manager, 
turning  back  to  his  desk.  "We  need  a  traffic  agency  up 
in  the  Oregon  country.  See  Merriam — to-night.  Find 
out  if  he'd  like  to  have  the  general  agency  at,  say,  twen 
ty-five  hundred  a  year;  and  if  he  agrees,  get  out  the 
circular  appointing  him." 


176'  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

"He'll  agree,  fast  enough/'  laughed  the  secretary. 
"But  I'll  nail  him— to-night." 

Ford  spent  rather  more  than  two  weeks  in  his  round 
up  of  the  eastern  steel  mills,  and  there  was  a  terrific  ac 
cumulation  of  correspondence  awaiting  him  when  he 
reached  Denver.  At  the  top  of  the  pile  was  an  official 
circular  appointing  one  George  Z.  Merriam,  a  man  whom 
Ford  remembered,  or  seemed  vaguely  to  remember,  as 
one  of  the  MacMorrogh  bookkeepers,  general  agent  of 
the  P.  S-W.,  with  headquarters  at  Portland,  Oregon. 
And  at  the  bottom  of  the  accumulation  was  a  second 
official  printing,  bearing  the  approval  of  the  president, 
this;  and  Ford's  eyes  gloomed  angrily  when  he  read  it. 

PACIFIC  SOUTHWESTERN  RAILWAY  CO. 
Office  of  the  President. 

NEW  YOBK,  August  24. 
To  All  Officials  and  Employees: 

At  a  called  meeting  of  the  stock-holders  of  this  company, 
held  in  New  York,  August  23,  Mr.  John  C.  North  was  elected 
First  Vice-President  and  General  Manager  of  all  lines  of 
this  company,  operative  and  under  construction.  All  officers 
and  employees  will  govern  themselves  accordingly. 

By  Order  of  the  Executive  Committee. 
Approved : 
SIDNEY  J.  COLBBITH,  President. 


xv; 


AN  UNWILLING  HOST 

Standing  in  the  Pacific  portal  of  Plug  Pass,  on  the 
old  snow-crust  which,  even  in  midsummer,  never  entirely 
disappears  at  altitude  ten  thousand  feet,  they  could  look 
away  westward  over  a  billowing  sea  of  mountain  and 
mesa  and  valley  breaking  in  far-distant,  crystalline 
space  against  the  mighty  rampart  of  the  Wasatch  range, 
two  hundred  and  other  miles  nearer  the  sunset. 

It  was  an  outlook  both  inspiring  and  chastening ;  with 
the  scenic  grandeurs  to  give  the  exalted  uplift,  and  the 
still,  gray-green  face  of  the  vast  mountainous  desert  to 
shrink  the  beholder  to  microscopic  littleness  in  the 
face  of  its  stupendous  heights  and  depths,  its  im 
measurable  bulks  and  interspaces.  Miss  Alicia  said 
something  like  this  to  Ford,  in  broken  exclamations, 
when  she  had  taken  her  first  quailing  eye-plunge  from 
the  lofty  view-point. 

"Yes ;  quite  so,"  Ford  acquiesced,  in  the  unresponsive 
tone  of  one  who  says  what  he  must,  rather  than  what  he 
would  like  to  say.  "It  is  all  the  things  you  have  been 

177 


178  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

saying,  and  more — when  one  has  the  time  and  the  mind 
to  be  enthusiastic  about  it." 

Miss  Adair  stood  up  very  straight,  and  her  chin  was 
a  protest  in  Praxitelean  harmonies.  She  knew  very  well 
how  reluctantly  her  companion  was  doing  the  honors  of 
the  mountain  vastnesses;  how  full  of  wrath  he  was  be 
cause  President  Colbrith  had  seen  fit  to  precipitate  the 
Nadia  and  a  private-car  party  into  the  midst  of  the 
strenuous  building  battle  on  the  western  extension.  But 
she  argued  that  this  was  no  reason  why  he  should  be 
crustily  impossible  with  her.  Wherefore  she  said,  merely 
to  see  him  boil  over : 

"I  should  think  you  would  come  up  here  often  for 
this  glorious  view,  Mr.  Ford.  You  do,  don't  you?" 

"Come  up  here  for  the  view?  Oh,  yes;  I  presume  I 
have  climbed  up  here  a  hundred  times,  first  and  last, 
and  always  for  the  sake  of  the  view.  I  began  it  the  first 
winter  I  spent  in  Saint's  Rest,  when  the  snow-shoeing 
was  at  its  best.  Really  to  appreciate  the  scenery,  you 
should  take  three  hours  for  the  approach  from  the  basin 
down  yonder,  dragging  a  pair  of  Canadian  raquettes  by 
the  toe-straps." 

The  young  woman  laughed  inwardly  at  the  broad 
sword  slash  of  his  sarcasm.  It  was  so  like  the  man ;  big 
and  vigorous  and  energetic,  and  quite  without  regard 
for  consequences  or  for  the  insignificance  of  the  thing 
to  be  obliterated.  But  she  would  not  spare  him. 


AN   UNWILLING   HOST  179 

"How  enthusiastic  you  are!"  she  commented.  "I 
don't  believe  I  should  be  equal  to  fa  hundred  times,  first 
and  last/  or  to  the  snow-shoes.  But  I  can  admire  such 
zeal  in  other  people  immensely." 

"Do  you  really  think  so  small  of  a  man's  work  in  the 
world,  Miss  Adair  ?"  he  demanded,  not  very  coherently. 
"I'm  not  saying  that  the  scenery  doesn't  move  me.  It 
does;  and  the  first  time  I  stood  here  on  this  summit, 
I  presume  I  felt  just  as  you  do  now.  But  my  comings 
and  goings  have  been  chiefly  concerned  with  this" — 
kicking  the  rail  of  the  new  track  which  threaded  the 
shallow  valley  of  the  pass.  "I  am  trying  to  build  a  rail 
road  ;  to  build  it  quickly,  and  as  well  as  I  can.  When  I 
get  it  finished,  I  may  have  time  to  admire  the  scenery." 

It  was  a  little  appeal  for  sympathy,  apparent  enough 
in  spite  of  its  indirectness;  but  Miss  Adair  was  still 
mindful  of  Ford's  too  evident  willingness  to  leave  her 
behind  at  the  deserted  grading-camp  half-way  down  to 
Saint's  Rest  where  the  Nadia  was  temporarily  side 
tracked. 

"Another  ideal  gone/'  she  lamented,  in  mock  despair. 
"All  those  trampings  and  toilings  up  this  magnificent 
mountain  merely  to  prepare  for  the  laying  of  some  logs 
of  wood  in  a  row,  with  two  strands  of  iron  to  fasten 
them  together !" 

He  smiled  at  her  definition  of  his  railroad,  and  the 
keen  edge  of  his  annoyance  was  a  little  blunted.  He  had 


180  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

been  telling  himself  that  she  might  be  twenty-four,  or 
possibly  twenty-five ;  but  evidently  she  was  only  a  child, 
with  a  child's  appreciation  of  a  very  considerable  indus 
trial  triumph.  Old  engineers,  one  of  them  an  assistant 
on  his  own  staff,  had  shaken  their  heads  and  declared 
that  the  running  of  a  standard  gauge  railroad  over  Plug 
Pass  was  a  sheer  impossibility.  Yet  he  had  done  it. 

"I  suspect  I  owe  you  an  apology/'  he  said,  yielding  a 
little  to  the  love  which  was  fighting  with  discouragement 
and  righteous  anger  for  the  first  place  in  his  heart.  "I'm 
afraid  I  have  been  taking  you  too  seriously,  all  along." 

Her  laugh  was  a  delicious  little  ripple  of  exultation. 
She  had  succeeded  in  avenging  herself. 

"I  can  forgive  you  now,"  she  said,  and  the  blue  eyes 
were  dancing.  "But  you  must  admit  that  you  were  the 
aggressor.  I  have  never  been  made  so  pointedly  un 
welcome  in  all  my  life.  I  believe  you  were  going  to  re 
fuse  to  let  me  walk  up  here  with  you  if  Uncle  Sidney 
had  not  commanded  you  to." 

This  time  his  smile  was  a  grin,  but  it  was  not  ill- 
natured. 

"I  should,  indeed,"  he  confessed  quite  frankly.  "To 
be  brutally  candid,  I  had  a  decided  attack  of  the  'un- 
welcomes'  when  I  received  Mr.  Colbrith's  wire  announc 
ing  his  intention  of  bringing  his  picnic  party  out  here 
into  the  midst  of  things.  We  have  little  time,  and  none 
of  the  civilized  conveniences,  for  entertaining  company." 


AN   UNWILLING    HOST  181 

"I  think  we  all  understand  that/'  she  made  haste  to 
say.  "Aunt  Hetty  tried  to  dissuade  Uncle  Sidney,  but 
he  was  bent  on  showing  us  how  modern  railroad  build 
ing  is  rushed  at  the  'front' — is  that  the  right  word? — 
and  so  here  we  are." 

A  small  frown  gathered  between  Ford's  eyes.  He  was 
far  enough  from  suspecting  that  this  was  the  outwork 
ing  of  Kenneth's  "notion";  that  Mr.  Colbrith's  annual 
inspection  tour  over  the  Pacific  Southwestern  had  been 
extended  to  cover  the  new  line  at  Kenneth's  suggestion 
— a  suggestion  arising  out  of  purely  reformatory  mo 
tives.  Nor  would  it  have  helped  matters  much  if  he  had 
known  Kenneth's  genuine  distress  when  it  transpired 
that  the  suggestion  bade  fair  to  result  in  precipitating 
a  private  car-load  of  pleasurers  into  the  pandemonium 
of  the  grading-camps. 

But  the  pleasurers  were  as  yet  only  upon  the  borders 
of  the  pandemonium,  and  Ford  was  torturing  his  in 
genuity  to  devise  some  argument  strong  enough  to  turn 
back  the  threatened  invasion.  There  were  reasons 
enough  why  a  party  with  women  among  its  members 
should  not  be  projected  into  the  grading  and  track- 
laying  field.  It  was  no  place  for  women,  Ford  was  tell 
ing  himself  wrathf ully ;  especially  for  the  women  of  the 
president's  own  household. 

In  the  little  interval  of  silence  Miss  Adair  was  focus 
ing  her  field-glass  and  trying  to  trace  the  line  of  the 


182  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

descending  grade  into  the  headwater  valley  of  the  Pan 
nikin.  Ford  did  not  mean  to  be  ungracious  to  her — 
what  lover  ever  means  to  be  curt  to  the  one  woman  in 
all  the  world?  But  it  is  not  easy  to  be  angry  in  nine 
parts  and  loving-kind  in  the  tenth — anger  being  one  of 
the  inclusive  emotions.  Nevertheless,  he  made  the  ef 
fort,  for  her  sake.  However  inconsiderate  Mr.  Colbrith 
was,  she  was  blameless. 

"Let  me  show  you/7  he  said,  taking  the  field-glass  and 
adjusting  it  for  her.  "Now  hold  it  steadily  and  pick  up 
the  line  in  the  great  loop.  .  .  .  Have  you  found  it? 
.  .  .  Now  follow  it  slowly  until  you  come  to  the  point 
where  it  turns  into  the  valley,  and  you  can  trace  it  for 
miles  by  the  cuts  and  fills." 

She  followed  his  directions  until  the  line  of  the  ex 
tension  became  a  vanishing  thread  in  the  distance,  and 
then  was  content  to  let  the  glass  sweep  the  vastnesses 
beyond.  When  she  spoke  it  was  of  the  topographic  im 
mensities. 

"I  heard  you  telling  brother  at  the  dinner-table  in 
Chicago  that  you  were  able  to  see  more  in  this  wilder 
ness  than  you  have  ever  been  able  to  make  any  one  else 
see.  Can  I  see  it  with  the  glass  ?" 

"Hardly,"  he  smiled.  "I  was  trying  to  tell  your 
brother  of  the  magnificent  possibilities  of  the  country 
lying  between  this  and  that  farthest  mountain  range; 
the  country  we  are  going  to  open  up.  It  was  a  gospel 


AN   UNWILLING    HOST  183 

I  had  been  trying  to  preach  to  the  directors,  but  none 
of  them  believed — not  even  your  uncle." 

"I  see  nothing  but  vastness  and  cold  gray  grandeurs," 
she  said,  adding:  "and  the  very  bigness  of  it  makes  me 
feel  like  a  mere  atom,  or  a  molecule — whichever  is  the 
smaller." 

"Yet  it  is  a  new  empire  in  the  rough,"  he  rejoined, 
with  a  touch  of  the  old  enthusiasm,  "waiting  only  for 
the  coming  of  this" — putting  his  foot  again  upon  the 
steel  of  the  new  railroad  line.  "What  you  are  looking 
at  has  been  called  a  part  of  the  Great  American  Desert 
— the  most  forbidding  part,  in  the  stories  of  the  early 
explorers.  Notwithstanding,  there  will  come  a  time 
when  you  can  focus  your  glass  here  on  this  mountain 
and  look  out  over  what  the  promoters  will  then  be  ad 
vertising  as  a  'peopled  paradise/  and  these  'logs  of  wood 
in  a  row,  with  two  strands  of  iron  to  fasten  them  to 
gether'  will  bring  it  to  pass." 

There  was  a  flash  of  the  enthusiast's  fire  in  the  cool 
gray  eyes  to  go  with  the  words,  and  Miss  Adair  won 
dered  at  it.  He  had  stood  for  her  as  an  embodiment  of 
things  practical  and  prosaic ;  as  one  too  keenly  watchful 
and  alert  on  the  purely  industrial  side  to  be  in  any  sense 
a  dreamer  of  dreams.  Some  part  of  her  thought  slipped 
into  speech. 

"No,  I  am  not  an  enthusiast,"  he  denied,  in  reply  to 
her  charge.  "At  bottom,  I'm  only  an  engineer,  with  an 


184  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

ambition  to  build  railroads.  But  I  should  have  learned 
no  more  than  half  of  my  trade  if  I  couldn't  tell  where 
it  would  be  profitable  to  build  them." 

"Never  mind :  you  seem  to  have  convinced  Uncle  Sid 
ney  and  the  directors  finally,"  she  commented. 

"No;  your  uncle  and  the  directors  are  not  empire 
builders — meaning  to  be/'  he  objected.  "They  are 
after  the  present  visible  dollar  in  a  western  outlet  for 
the  Pacific  Southwestern.  If  we  reach  Green  Butte  be 
fore  our  competitors  can  broaden  their  narrow  gauge  to 
that  point,  we  shall  have  a  practicable  line  from  Chi 
cago  to  the  Pacific  coast." 

"I  understand,"  she  said.  "But  yours  is  the  higher 
ideal — the  true  American  ideal."  .j^StT"  fr 

"It's  business,"  he  asserted. 

"Well,  isn't  business  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  the  \j 
American  ideal?"  she  laughed. 

This  time  he  laughed  with  her,  forgetting  his  trou 
bles  for  the  moment. 

"I  guess  it  is,  in  the  last  analysis,"  he  said.  And 
then:  "I'm  sorry  to  keep  you  waiting  so  long,  if  you 
are  anxious  to  get  back  to  the  Nadia.  But  I  warned  you 
beforehand.  I  must  keep  my  appointment  with  Frisbie. 
Do  you  see  anything  of  him?"  This  because  she  was 
again  sweeping  the  western  wilderness  with  the  field- 


"What  am  I  to  look  for?" 


AN   UNWILLING   HOST  185 

"The  smoke  of  an  engine." 

She  focused  the  glass  on  the  gorge  at  the  foot  of  the 
pass.  "I  see  it !"  she  cried.  "A  little  black  beetle  of  a 
thing  just  barely  crawling.  Now  it  is  turning  into  the 
first  curve  of  the  great  loop." 

"Then  we  shan't  have  very  much  longer  to  wait.  Do 
you  find  the  ten-thousand-foot  breeze  chilly?  Turn  up 
the  collar  of  your  coat  and  we'll  walk  a  bit." 

It  was  his  first  appreciable  concern  for  her  comfort., 
and  she  gave  him  full  credit.  Coquetry  was  no  part  of 
Miss  Alicia's  equipment,  but  no  woman  likes  to  be 
utterly  neglected  on  the  care-taking  side,  or  to  be  trans 
formed  ruthlessly  into  a  man-companion  whose  well- 
being  may  be  brusquely  ignored.  And  this  young  athlete 
in  brown  duck  shooting-coat  and  service  leggings,  who 
was  patiently  doing  a  sentry-go  beside  her  up  and  down 
the  newly-laid  track  at  the  summit  of  Plug  Pass,  was 
quite  a  different  person  from  the  abashed  apologist  who 
had  paid  for  her  dinner  in  the  dining-car  on  the  night 
of  purse-snatchings. 


XVI 

THE   TRUTHFUL  ALTITUDES 

A  low,  tremulous  shudder  was  beginning  to  lift  it 
self,  like  the  distant  growling  of  thunder,  upon  the 
tinnient  air  of  the  high  summit.  A  moment  later  a 
heavy  construction  engine  shot  around  the  final  curve 
in  the  westward  climb,  with  Michael  Gallagher  hanging 
out  of  the  cab  window  on  the  engineer's  side. 

The  two  at  the  summit  faced  about  to  watch  the  ap 
proach.  The  big  engine  came  lumbering  and  lurching 
dangerously  over  the  unsurfaced  track  in  a  fierce  spurt 
for  the  mountain-top,  its  stack  vomiting  fire,  its  cylin 
der-cocks  hissing  shrilly,  and  its  exhaust  ripping  the 
spheral  silences  like  the  barking  detonations  of  a  ma 
chine-gun. 

Ford  glanced  aside  at  his  companion;  her  expressive 
face  was  a  study  in  delighted  animation  and  he  decided 
that  he  had  again  misjudged  the  president's  niece.  She 
was  beating  time  softly  with  her  gloved  hands  and  sing 
ing  the  song  of  the  locomotive : 

"  'With  a  michnai— ghignai— shtingal!    Yah!  Yah!  Yah! 
Ein—zwei—drei— Mutter!    Yah!  Yah!  Yah! 
She  climb  upon  der  shteeple, 
Und  she  frighten  all  der  people, 
Singin'  michnai— ghignai— shtingal!     Yah!  Yah!'" 
186 


THE    TRUTHFUL    ALTITUDES  187 

she  quoted;  and  Ford's  heart  went  out  to  her  in  new 
and  comradely  outreachings. 

"You  read  Naught-naught-seven?"  he  said:  "you  are 
one  woman  in  a  thousand." 

"Herd!"  she  countered.  "Small  favors  thankfully  re 
ceived.  Brother  thinks  there  is  only  one  person  writing, 
nowadays,  and  the  name  of  that  person  is  Kipling.  I 
get  a  little  of  it  by  mere  attrition." 

The  brakes  of  the  big  engine  were  still  gripping  the 
wheels  when  a  small  man  with  wicked  mustaches  and 
goatee  dropped  from  the  gangway.  His  khaki  suit  was 
weather-faded  to  a  dirty  green,  and  he  was  grimy  and 
perspiring  and  altogether  unpresentable;  but  he  pulled 
himself  together  and  tried  to  look  pleasant  when  he  saw 
that  his  chief  had  a  companion,  and  that  the  companion 
was  a  lady. 

"I'm  sorry  if  I  have  kept  you  waiting/'  he  began. 
"Gallagher  was  shifting  steel  for  the  track-layers  when 
your  wire  found  me,  and  the  engine  couldn't  be  spared," 
— this,  of  course,  to  Ford.  Then,  with  an  apologetic  side 
glance  for  the  lady :  "Eiley's  in  hot  water  again — up  to 
his  chin." 

"What's  the  matter  now  ?"  gritted  Ford ;  and  Alicia 
marked  the  instant  change  to  masterful  command. 

"Same  old  score.  The  Italians  are  kicking  again  at 
the  MacMorrogh  Brothers'  commissary — because  they 
have  to  pay  two  prices  and  get  chuck  that  a  self-respect- 


188  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

ing  dog  wouldn't  eat;  and,  besides,  they  say  they  are 
quarrying  rock — which  is  true — and  getting  paid  by 
the  MacMorroghs  for  moving  earth.  They  struck  at 
noon  to-day." 

The  chief  frowned  gloomily,  and  the  president's  niece 
felt  intuitively  that  her  presence  was  a  bar  to  free 
speech. 

"It's  straight  enough  about  the  rotten  commissary  and 
the  graft  on  the  pay-rolls,"  said  Eord  wrathfully.  "Is 
the  trouble  likely  to  spread  to  the  camps  farther  down  ?" 

"I  hope  not;  I  don't  think  it  will — without  whisky 
to  help  it  along,"  said  Frisbie,  with  another  apologetic 
side  glance  for  Miss  Adair. 

"Yes;  but  the  whisky  isn't  lacking — there's  Pete 
Garcia  and  his  stock  of  battle,  murder  and  sudden  death 
at  Paint  Rock,  a  short  half-mile  from  Riley's,"  Ford 
broke  in. 

Frisbie's  smile,  helped  out  by  the  grime  and  the  coal 
dust,  was  triumphantly  demoniacal. 

"Not  now  there  isn't,"  he  amended;  adding:  "Any 
fire-water  at  Paint  Rock,  I  mean.  When  Riley  told  me 
what  was  doing,  I  made  a  bee  line  for  Garcia's  wickiup 
and  notified  him  officially  that  he'd  have  to  go  out  of 
business  for  the  present." 

"Oh,  you  did?"  said  Ford.  "Of  course  he  was  quite 
willing  to  oblige  you  ?  How  much  time  did  he  give  you 
to  get  out  of  pistol  range  ?" 


'Mies  Adair,  you  must  let  me  introduce  mv  friend,  Mr.  Richard  Frisbie 

--  Page  18 


THE    TKUTHFUL   ALTITUDES          189 

Frisbie  actually  blushed — in  deference  to  the  lady. 

"Why — er — it  was  the  other  way  round.  He  double- 
quicked  a  little  side-trip  down  the  gulch  while  I 
knocked  in  the  heads  of  his  whisky  barrels  and  wrecked 
his  bar  with  a  striking  hammer  I  had  brought  along." 

For  the  first  time  in  the  interview  the  chief's  frown 
melted  and  he  laughed  approvingly. 

"Miss  Adair,  you  must  let  me  introduce  my  friend 
and  first  assistant,  Mr.  Kichard  Frisbie.  He  is  vastly 
more  picturesque  than  anything  else  we  have  to  show 
you  at  this  end  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern.  Dick — 
Miss  Alicia  Adair,  President  Colbrith's  niece." 

Frisbie  took  off  his  hat,  and  Miss  Alicia  gave  him  her 
most  gracious  smile. 

"Please  go  on,"  she  said.  "I'm  immensely  interested. 
What  became  of  Mr.  Garcia  afterward  ?" 

"I  don't  know  that,"  said  Frisbie  ingenuously.  "Only, 
I  guess  I  shall  find  out  when  I  go  back.  He  is  likely  to 
be  a  little  irritated,  I'm  afraid.  But  there  are  compen 
sations,  even  in  Pete :  like  most  Mexicans,  he  can  neither 
tell  the  truth  nor  shoot  straight."  Then  again  to  Ford : 
"What  is  to  be  done  about  the  Kiley  mix-up  ?" 

"Oh,  the  same  old  thing.  Go  down  and  tell  the  Ital 
ians  that  the  company  will  stand  between  them  and  the 
MacMorroghs,  and  they  shall  have  justice — provided  al 
ways  that  every  man  of  them  is  back  on  the  job  again 
to-morrow  morning.  Who  is  Eiley's  interpreter  now  ?" 


190  EMPIEE  BUILDERS; 

"Lanciotto." 

"Well,  look  out  for  him :  he  is  getting  a  side-cut  from 
the  MacMorroghs  and  is  likely  to  translate  you  crooked, 
if  it  suits  his  purposes.  Check  him  by  having  our  man 
Luigi  present  when  he  does  the  talking  act.  Any  word 
from  Major  Benson?" 

"He  was  at  the  tie-camp  on  Ute  Creek,  yesterday. 
Jack  Benson  and  Brissac  are  lining  the  grade  for  the 
steel  on  M' Grain's  section,  and  the  bridge  men  are  well 
up  to  the  last  crossing  of  Horse  Creek." 

"That's  encouraging.  How  about  the  grade  work  on 
the  detour — your  new  line  into  Copah  ?" 

It  was  the  assistant's  turn  to  frown,  but  the  brow- 
wrinkling  was  of  puzzlement. 

"There's  something  a  bit  curious  about  that — you 
don't  mind  our  talking  shop  like  a  pair  of  floor-walkers, 
do  you,  Miss  Adair?  You  know  we  expected  the  Mac 
Morroghs  would  kick  on  the  change  of  route  and  the 
loss  of  the  big  rock-cut  in  the  canyon.  There  wasn't  a 
word  of  protest.  If  I  hadn't  known  better,  I  should  have 
said  that  old  Brian  MacMorrogh  knew  all  about  it  in 
advance.  All  he  said  was :  'Sure,  'tis  your  railroad,  and 
we'll  be  buildin'  it  annywheres  you  say,  Misther  Fris- 
bie.'  And  the  very  next  day  he  had  a  little  army  of  men 
on  that  detour,  throwing  dirt  to  beat  the  band.  It'll  be 
ready  for  the  steel  by  the  time  we  can  get  to  it  with  the 
track-layers." 


THE    TRUTHFUL   ALTITUDES  191 

Ford  nodded  approvingly.  "Speed  is  what  we  are 
paying  for,  and  we're  thankful  to  get  it  whenever,  and 
wherever,  we  can.  Is  the  bridge  timber  coming  down 
all  right  now  ?" 

"Yes;  and  we  are  getting  plenty  of  ties  since  the 
major  put  on  his  war-paint  and  went  after  the  Mac- 
Morrogh  subs  in  the  tie-camps.  It  is  the  rock  work  that 
is  holding  us  back." 

Ford  nodded  again.  Then  he  tried  a  little  shot  in  the 
dark. 

"The  president's  car  is  just  below — at  the  basin 
switch.  He  wants  to  have  it  taken  to  the  front,  and  I 
have  been  trying  to  dissuade  him.  Is  the  track  safe  for 
it?" 

Frisbie  guessed  what  kind  of  answer  was  desired,  and 
stretched  the  truth  a  little. 

"I  should  say  not.  It's  something  fierce,  even  for  the 
construction  trains." 

Miss  Alicia's  smile  was  seraphic. 

"You  two  gentlemen  needn't  tell  fibs  for  the  possible 
effect  on  me,"  she  said,  with  charming  frankness. 
"Nothing  I  could  say  would  carry  any  weight  with  Uncle 
Sidney." 

"Stung!"  said  Frisbie,  half  to  himself;  and  the  two 
men  laughed  shamefacedly. 

"Will  it  disarrange  things  so  very  much  if  the  Nadia 
is  taken  to  the  <f ront'  ?"  asked  Miss  Adair. 


192  EMPIKE    BUILDERS 

"Well,  rather,"  said  Frisbie  bluntly.  Then  he  tried 
to  excuse  himself  and  made  a  mess  of  it. 

"Just  why?"  she  persisted.  "Forget  the  conventions, 
Mr.  Frisbie,  and  talk  to  me  as  you  have  been  talking  to 
Mr.  Ford.  Is  there  any  good  reason,  apart  from  the  in 
convenience,  why  our  little  pleasure  party  shouldn't  see 
your  new  railroad  ?  I  am  appealing  to  you  because  Mr. 
Ford  won't  tell  me  the  truth." 

Ford  stood  aloof  and  let  Frisbie  worry  with  it  alone. 

"There  are  a  dozen  reasons,  Miss  Adair;  the  track 
is  fearfully  rough — really,  you  know,  it  isn't  safe  for  a 
big  car  like  the  Nadia.  There  are  only  a  few  sidings, 
and  what  there  are,  are  filled  up  with  construction  stuff 
and  camp  cars,  and — " 

She  was  shaking  her  head  and  laughing  at  his  striv 
ings. 

"Never  mind,"  she  said;  "you  can't  tell  the  truth, 
either,  with  Mr.  Ford  looking  on.  But  I  shall  find  it 
out." 

Frisbie  looked  horrified. 

"You — you  certainly  will,  Miss  Adair;  if  Mr.  Col- 
brith  insists  upon  having  his  car  dragged  over  the 
range."  Then,  being  quite  willing  to  make  his  escape, 
he  turned  to  his  chief.  "Is  there  anything  else  ?  If  not, 
I'll  be  getting  back  to  the  Riley  mix-up  before  the  trou 
ble  has  time  to  grow  any  bigger." 

Ford  shook  his  head,  and  Frisbie  lifted  his  hat  to 


THE    TKUTHFUL   ALTITUDES          193 

Miss  Adair  and  turned  to  climb  to  his  engine  cab.  But 
at  the  moment  of  brake-releasings  Ford  halted  him. 

"One  minute,"  he  said;  and  turning  to  his  charge: 
"I'll  borrow  Dick's  engine  and  take  you  down  to  the 
Nadia's  siding,  if  you'd  rather  ride  than  walk." 

"Oh,  will  you?  That  would  be  fine!  But  oughtn't 
Mr.  Frisbie  to  get  back  to  his  work  ?" 

"Y-yes,"  Ford  admitted.  "Time  is  rather  important, 
just  now." 

"Then  we'll  walk,"  she  said  with  great  decision. 

"That's  all,  Dick,"  Ford  called.  "Keep  an  eye  open 
for  Garcia.  He  might  make  a  fluke  and  shoot  straight, 
for  once  in  a  way." 

They  stood  in  silence  on  the  wind-swept  summit  until 
the  curving  down-rush  of  the  western  grade  had  swal 
lowed  the  retreating  engine.  Miss  Alicia  was  the  first 
to  speak  when  the  iron  clamor  was  distance-drowned. 

"I  like  your  Mr.  Frisbie,"  she  said  reflectively.  "Isn't 
he  the  kind  of  man  who  would  have  taken  the  message 
to  the  other  Garcia?" 

"He  is  the  kind  of  man  who  would  stop  a  bullet  for 
his  friend,  and  think  nothing  of  it — if  the  bullet  should 
happen  to  leave  him  anything  to  think  with,"  he  re 
turned  warmly.  And  then  he  added,  half  absently: 
"He  saved  my  life  four  years  ago  last  summer." 

There  was  genuine  human  interest  in  her  voice  when 
she  said  gently : 


194  EMPIEE    BUILDERS 

"Would  you  mind  telling  me  about  it?" 

"It  was  up  in  the  Minnesota  pineries,  where  we  were 
building  a  branch  railroad  through  the  corner  of  an 
Indian  reservation.  A  half-breed  pot-hunter  for  the 
game  companies  had  a  right-of-way  quarrel  with  the 
railroad  people,  and  he  pitched  upon  me  as  the  proper 
person  to  kill.  It  was  a  knife  rush  in  the  moonlight; 
and  Dick  might  have  shot  him,  only  he  was  too  tender 
hearted.  So  he  got  between  us." 

"Well?"  she  prompted,  when  it  became  evident  that 
Ford  thought  he  had  finished. 

"That  was  all;  except  that  it  was  touch  and  go  with 
poor  Dick  for  the  next  six  weeks,  with  no  surgeon 
worthy  of  the  name  nearer  than  St.  Paul." 

Miss  Alicia  was  more  deeply  impressed  by  the  little 
story  than  she  cared  to  have  her  companion  suspect.  Her 
world  was  a  world  of  the  commonplace  conventions,  with 
New  York  as  its  starting  point  and  homing  place;  and 
she  thought  she  knew  something  of  humankind.  But  it 
came  to  her  suddenly  that  the  men  she  knew  best  were 
not  at  all  like  these  two. 

"Shall  we  go  back  now?"  she  asked;  and  they  were 
half-way  down  to  the  siding  and  the  private  car  before 
she  spoke  again.  It  took  some  little  time  to  compass 
sufficient  humility  to  make  amends,  and  even  then  the 
admission  came  to  no  more  than  four  words. 

"I'm  sorry,  Mr.  Ford." 


THE    TRUTHFUL   ALTITUDES          195 

"What  for  ?"  he  asked,  knowing  only  that  he  was  com 
ing  to  love  her  more  blindly  with  every  added  minute  of 
their  companionship. 

"For — for  trying  to  be  hateful."  It  was  a  humbler 
thing  than  any  she  had  ever  said  to  a  man,  but  the  raw 
sincerity  of  time  and  place  and  association  was  begin 
ning  to  get  into  her  blood. 

"If  it  comes  to  that,  there  were  two  of  us,"  he  re 
joined,  matching  her  frankness.  "And,  as  you  remarked 
a  while  back,  I  was  certainly  the  aggressor.  Shall  we 
call  it  a  truce  for  the  present  ?" 

"If  you  will  be  generous  enough." 

"Oh,  I  am  generosity  itself,  under  ordinary  condi 
tions  ;  but  just  now  Fll  admit  that  I  am  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  inhospitable.  I  can't  help  wishing  most 
fervently  that  something  had  happened  to  prevent  your 
uncle's  coming." 

"Is  it  uncle  who  is  in  the  way? — or  the  pleasure 
party?" 

"Both." 

"We  are  negligible,"  she  said,  meaning  the  pleasurers. 

"No,  you  are  not ;  and  neither  is  your  Uncle  Sidney." 

"Is  he  still  formidable  to  you?"  she  laughed. 

"He  is,  indeed.  But,  worse  than  that,  he  is  likely  to 
prove  a  very  considerable  disturbing  element  if  I  can't 
keep  him  from  plunging  in  upon  us." 

She  let  half  of  the  remaining  distance  to  the  end  of 


196  EMPIRE    BUILDEES 

the  steep  grade  go  underfoot  before  she  said:  "I  like 
to  help  people,  sometimes;  but  I  don't  like  to  do  it  in 
the  dark." 

He  would  have  explained  instantly  to  a  man  for  the 
sake  of  gaining  an  ally.  But  he  could  not  bring  himself 
to  the  point  of  telling  her  the  story  of  graft  and  mis 
rule  in  which  the  MacMorroghs  were  the  principals,  and 
North — and  her  uncle,  by  implication — the  backers. 

So  he  said :  "It  is  rather  a  long  story,  and  you  would 
scarcely  understand  it.  We  have  been  having  constant 
trouble  with  the  MacMorroghs,  the  contractors,  and 
there  is  a  bad  state  of  affairs  in  the  grading  camps.  It 
has  come  to  a  point  where  I  shall  have  to  fight  the  Mac 
Morroghs  to  some  sort  of  a  finish,  and — well,  to  put  it 
very  baldly,  I  don't  want  to  have  to  fight  the  MacMor 
roghs  and  the  president  in  the  same  round." 

"Why  should  Uncle  Sidney  take  the  part  of  these 
men,  if  they  are  bad  men,  Mr.  Ford  ?" 

"Because  he  has  always  distrusted  my  judgment,  and 
because  he  is  loyal  to  Mr.  North,  whom  he  has  made  my 
superior.  Mr.  North  tells  him  that  I  am  to  blame." 

"But  it  must  be  a  very  dreadful  condition  of  things, 
if  what  Mr.  Frisbie  said  is  all  true." 

"Frisbie  spoke  of  only  one  little  incident.  Trouble 
like  this  we're  having  to-day  is  constantly  arising.  No 
money-making  graft  is  too  petty  or  too  immoral  for  the 
MacMorroghs  to  connive  at.  They  rob  and  starve  their 


THE   TRUTHFUL   ALTITUDES          197 

laborers,  and  cheat  the  company  with  bad  work.    Fve 
got  to  have  a  free  hand  in  dealing  with  them,  or — " 

He  stopped  abruptly,  realizing  that  he  was  talking  to 
her  as  he  might  have  talked  to  a  specialist  in  his  own 
profession.  Hence  he  was  not  disappointed  when  she 
said: 

"You  go  too  fast  for  me.  But  I  think  I  understand 
now  why  our  coming  is  inopportune.  And  it's  comfort 
ing  to  know  that  the  reason  is  a  business  reason." 

He  put  shame  to  the  wall  and  blurted  out  suddenly: 
"It  is  only  one  of  the  reasons,  Miss  Adair.  The — the 
camps  are  no  fit  place  for  a  party  with  women.  You — 
you'll  have  to  be  blind  and  deaf  if  your  uncle  persists 
in  taking  you  with  him." 

It  was  said,  and  he  was  glad  of  it,  though  he  was  wip 
ing  the  perspiration  from  his  face  when  the  thing  was 
done.  She  was  silent  until  they  were  standing  at  the 
steps  of  the  side-tracked  private  car. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said  simply.  "Of  course,  I'll  do 
what  I  can  to  keep  Uncle  Sidney  from  going — and  tak 
ing  us.  What  shall  you  say  to  him  ?" 

"I  am  going  to  tell  him  that  our  track  isn't  safe  for 
the  Nadia — which  is  true  enough." 

"Very  well.  I'll  tell  Aunt  Hetty  and  Mrs.  Van  Bruce 
— which  may  be  more  to  the  point.  But  don't  be  en 
couraged  by  that.  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  Uncle 
Sidney  will  have  his  way  in  spite  of  any  or  all  of  us." 


IXVII 

£  NIGHT   OF  ALARMS 

Ford  put  Miss  Alicia  up  the  steps  of  the  Nadia  and 
followed  her  into  the  vestibule,  meaning  to  fight  it  out 
with  Mr.  Colbrith  on  the  spot,  and  hoping  he  might 
have  a  private  audience  with  the  president  for  the  doing 
of  it. 

The  hope  was  not  denied.  Penfield,  who  was  acting 
as  private  secretary  to  Mr.  Colbrith,  en  route,  appeared 
in  the  passageway  to  say  that  Ford  was  wanted  in  the 
president's  state-room. 

"Well,  Mr.  Ford,  what  are  we  waiting  for?"  was  the 
querulous  demand  which  served  as  Mr.  Colbrith's  greet 
ing  when  Ford  presented  himself  at  the  door  of  the  pri 
vate  compartment. 

Ford's  reply  lacked  the  deferential  note.  He  had 
reached  a  point  at  which  his  job  was  not  worth  as  much 
as  it  had  been. 

"I  have  just  brought  Miss  Adair  back  from  the  top 
of  the  pass,  where  we  met  Mr.  Frisbie,  my  chief  of  con- 

198 


A   NIGHT    OF    ALARMS  199 

struction.  I  wished  to  ask  him  if  he  thought  the  track 
was  safe  for  your  car,  and  he  says,  most  emphatically, 
that  it  is  not.  I  can  not  take  the  responsibility  of  send 
ing  the  Nadia  to  the  end-of-track." 

The  president's  thin  face  was  working  irritably.  "I 
haven't  asked  you  to  assume  any  responsibility,  Mr. 
Ford.  If  the  track  is  safe  for  your  material  trains,  it  is 
safe  enough  for  my  car.  But  I  didn't  send  for  you  to 
argue  the  point.  I  desire  to  have  the  Nadia  taken  to  the 
front.  Be  good  enough  to  give  the  necessary  orders." 

Ford  tried  again.  In  addition  to  the  precarious  track 
there  were  few  or  no  unoccupied  sidings,  especially  near 
the  front.  Moreover,  there  was  no  telegraph  service 
which  might  suffice  for  the  safe  despatching  of  the  spe 
cial  train.  There  might  be  entire  sections  over  which 
the  Nadia  would  have  to  be  flagged  by  a  man  on  foot, 
and — 

The  president  cut  him  off  with  almost  childish  im 
patience. 

"I  don't  know  what  your  object  is  in  putting  so  many 
stumbling-blocks  in  the  way,  Mr.  Ford/3  he  rasped.  "A 
suspicious  person  might  say  that  you  have  been  doing 
something  which  you  do  not  wish  to  have  found  out." 

Ford  was  a  fair-skinned  man,  and  the  blood  burned 
hotly  in  his  face.  But,  as  once  before  under  the  presi 
dent's  nagging,  he  found  his  self-control  rising  with  the 
provocation. 


20Q  EMPIRE    BUILDEES 

"My  work  is  open  to  inspection  or  investigation,  now 
or  at  any  time,  and  I  think  we  need  not  discuss  that 
point,"  he  said,  when  he  could  force  himself  to  say  it 
calmly.  "We  were  speaking  of  the  advisability  of  tak 
ing  the  Nadia  and  a  pleasure  party  over  a  piece  of  raw 
construction  line,  and  into  an  environment  which,  to 
put  it  mildly,  could  hardly  be  congenial  to — to  the  ladies 
of  the  party.  You  know,  or  ought  to  know,  the  Mac- 
Morroghs:  their  camps  are  not  exactly  models  of  pro 
priety,  Mr.  Colbrith." 

This  was  merely  waving  a  red  flag  at  an  already  ex 
asperated  bull.  The  president  got  upon  his  feet,  and  his 
shrill  falsetto  cut  the  air  like  a  knife. 

"Mr.  Ford,  when  I  wish  to  be  told  what  is  or  is  not 
proper  for  me  to  do,  I'll  ask  you  for  an  opinion,  sir. 
But  this  is  quite  beside  the  mark.  Will  you  order  this 
car  out,  or  shall  I  ?" 

Ford  looked  at  his  watch  imperturbably.  Now  that 
the  president  was  thoroughly  angry,  he  could  afford  to 
be  cool. 

"It  is  now  five  o'clock;  and  our  end-of-track  is  fully 
one  hundred  and  ten  miles  beyond  the  summit  of  the 
pass.  Do  I  understand  that  you  wish  to  take  the  added 
risk  of  a  night  run,  Mr.  Colbrith?  If  so,  I'll  give  the 
order  and  we'll  pull  out." 

"I  desire  to  go  now!"  was  the  irascible  reply.  "Is 
that  sufficiently  explicit  ?" 


A   NIGHT    OF    ALARMS    -  201 

"It  is,"  said  Ford ;  and  he  left  the  presence  to  go  for 
ward  to  the  cab  of  the  waiting  engine. 

"You  are  to  take  the  car  over  the  mountain,  Hector," 
he  said  briefly,  to  the  beetle-browed  giant  in  blue  denim, 
when  he  had  climbed  to  the  foot-plate.  'Til  pilot  for 
you." 

"How  far  ?"  inquired  the  engineer. 

"Something  like  a  hundred  and  ten  miles." 

"Holy  smoke!  over  a  construction  track — in  the 
night?" 

"It's  the  president's  order — none  of  mine.  Let's  get 
a  move." 

The  big  man  got  down  from  his  box  and  made  room 
for  Ford.  "I'll  be  pilin'  'em  in  the  ditch  somewhere,  as 
sure  as  my  name's  Bill  Hector,"  he  said.  "But  we'll  go, 
all  the  same,  if  he  says  so.  I've  pulled  Mr.  Colbrith 
before.  Down  with  you.  Jimmy  Shovel,  and  set  the 
switch  for  us." 

The  fireman  swung  off  and  stood  by  the  switch,  and 
Hector  backed  his  one-car  train  from  the  siding.  When 
he  had  picked  up  the  fireman  and  was  ready  to  assault 
the  mountain,  Ford  thrust  a  query  in  between. 

"Hold  on  a  minute ;  how  is  the  water  ?"  he  asked. 

Jimmy  Shovel  climbed  over  the  coal  to  see,  and  re 
ported  less  than  half  a  tankful. 

"That  settles  it,"  said  the  chief  to  Hector.  "You'll 
have  to  back  down  to  Saint's  Rest  and  fill  up.  You'll 


202  EMPIRE  BUILDERS 

get  no  more  this  side  of  Pannikin  Upper  Canyon.  We 
haven't  had  time  to  build  tanks  yet." 

Hector  put  his  valve-motion  in  the  reverse  gear  and 
began  to  drop  the  train  down  the  grade  on  the  air.  A 
dozen  wheel-turns  brought  a  shrill  shriek  from  the  air- 
signal  whistle.  Mr.  Colbrith  evidently  wished  to  know 
why  his  train  was  going  in  the  wrong  direction.  Hector 
applied  the  brakes  and  stopped  in  obedience  to  the 
signal. 

"Do  we  send  back  ?"  he  asked. 

"No/'  said  Ford  sourly.  "Let  him  send  forward." 

Penfield  was  the  bearer  of  the  president's  question. 
Would  it  be  necessary  to  discharge  somebody  in  order  to 
have  his  commands  obeyed? 

Ford  answered  the  petulant  demand  as  one  bears  with 
a  spoiled  child.  They  were  returning  to  Sainf  s  Rest  for 
water.  Let  the  president  be  assured  that  his  orders 
would  be  obeyed  in  due  course. 

"He's  a  piker,  the  old  man  is,"  said  the  big  engineer, 
once  more  giving  the  1012  the  needful  inch  of  release 
to  send  it  grinding  down  the  hill.  "I'd  ruther  pull 
freight  thirty-six  hours  on  end  than  run  his  car  for  a 
hundred  miles." 

There  was  trouble  getting  at  the  water-tank  in  the 
Saint's  Rest  yard.  Leckhard,  acting  as  division  engi 
neer,  telegraph  superintendent,  material  forwarder  and 
yardmaster,  found  it  difficult  at  times  to  bring  order  out 


A   NIGHT    OF   ALARMS  203 

of  chaos  in  the  forwarding  yard.  It  was  a  full  hour  be 
fore  the  jumble  of  material  trains  could  be  shunted  and 
switched  and  juggled  to  permit  the  1012  to  drop  down 
to  the  water  tank ;  and  four  times  during  the  hour  Pen- 
field  climbed  dutifully  over  the  coal  to  tell  Ford  and 
the  engineer  what  the  president  thought  of  them. 

"Burn  me !  but  you  can  take  punishment  like  a  man, 
Mr.  Ford  I"  said  Hector,  on  the  heels  of  the  fourth  send 
ing,  sinking  rank  distinctions  in  his  admiration  for  a 
cool  fighter.  "These  here  polite  cussin's-out  are  what 
I  can't  stand.  Reckon  we'll  get  away  from  here  before 
the  old  man  throws  a  sure-enough  fit  ?" 

"That's  entirely  with  the  yard  crew,"  said  Ford, 
calmly  making  himself  comfortable  on  the  fireman's 
box.  "We'll  go  when  we  can  get  water ;  and  we'll  get 
water  when  the  tank  track  is  cleared.  That's  all  there 
is  to  it."  Whereupon  he  found  his  cigar  case,  passed  it 
to  Hector,  lighted  up,  and  waited  patiently  for  another 
second-hand  wigging  from  the  Nadia. 

As  it  chanced  the  tank  track  was  cleared  a  few  min 
utes  later;  the  1012  was  backed  down  and  supplied,  and 
Ford  instructed  Leckhard  to  do  what  he  could  with  the 
single,  poorly  manned  construction  wire  toward  giving 
the  president's  special  a  clear  track. 

"That  won't  be  much,"  said  the  hard-worked  base-of- 
supplies  man.  "We've  got  our  own  operator  at  Ten 
Mile,  and  Brissac  and  Frisbie  have  each  a  set  of  instru- 


204  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

ments  which  they  cut  in  on  the  line  with  wherever  they 
happen  to  be.  I  don't  know  where  Brissac  is,  but  Fris- 
bie  is  down  about  Riley's  to-night,  I  think.  After  you 
pass  him  you'll  have  no  help  from  the  wires." 

"I'll  have  what  I  can  get,"  asserted  Ford.  "Now  tell 
me  what  we're  likely  to  meet." 

Leckhard  laughed.  "Anything  on  top  of  earth,  from 
Brissac  or  Jack  Benson  or  Frisbie  chasing  somewhere  on 
a  light  engine,  to  Gallagher  or  Folsom  coming  out  with 
a  string  of  empties.  Oh,  you're  not  likely  to  find  much 
dead  track  anywhere  after  you  get  over  the  mountain." 

Ford  swung  up  beside  Hector,  who  had  been  listening. 
"You  see  what  we're  in  for,  Hector.  Start  your  head 
light  dynamo  and  let's  go,"  he  said;  and  five  minutes 
farther  on,  just  as  Penfield  was  about  to  make  his  fifth 
scramble  over  the  coal  in  the  tender,  the  1012  took  the 
upward  road  with  a  deafening  whistle  shriek  as  its  fare 
well  to  Saint's  Rest. 

It  was  pocket-dark  by  the  time  the  switch-stand  at 
the  basin  siding  swung  into  the  broad  beam  of  the  elec 
tric  headlight.  Ford  got  down  from  the  fireman's  box 
and  crossed  over  to  the  engineer's  side  to  pilot  Hector. 
"How's  your  track  from  this  on?"  inquired  the  big 
engineman  gruffly. 

"It  is  about  as  rough  as  it  can  be,  and  not  ditch  the 
steel  trains.  You'll  have  to  hold  her  down  or  we'll  have 
results." 


A    NIGHT    OF    ALARMS  205 

"What  in  the  name  o'  thunder  is  the  old  man's  no 
tion  of  goin'  to  the  front  with  a  picnic  party  and  makin' 
a  night  run  of  it,  at  that,  d'ye  reckon  ?" 

"The  Lord  only  knows.  Easy  around  this  curve  you're 
coming  to;  it  isn't  set  up  yet."  The  1012  was  a  fast 
eight-wheeler  from  the  main  line,  and  though  the  grade 
was  a  rising  four  per  cent.,  the  big  flyer  was  making 
light  work  of  her  one-car  train. 

Ford  sat  gloomily  watching  the  track  ahead  as  the 
great  engine  stormed  around  the  curves  and  up  the 
grades.  The  struggle  against  odds  was  beginning  to  tell 
on  him.  The  building  of  this  new  line,  the  opening  of 
the  new  country,  was  the  real  end  for  which  all  the  plan 
ning  and  scheming  in  the  financial  field  had  been  only 
the  necessary  preliminaries.  For  himself  he  had  craved 
nothing  but  the  privilege  of  building  the  extension ;  of 
rejoicing  in  his  own  handiwork  and  in  the  new  triumph 
of  progress  and  civilization  which  it  would  bring  to 
pass.  But  little  by  little  the  fine  fire  of  workmanlike 
enthusiasm  was  burning  itself  out  against  the  iron  bar 
riers  of  petty  spite  and  malice  thrown  up  at  every  turn 
by  North  and  the  Denver  junta  of  obstructionists. 

He  was  at  no  loss  to  account  for  North's  motive.  It 
was  no  longer  the  contemptuous  disregard  of  a  general 
manager  for  one  of  his  subordinates  who  had  shown 
signs  of  outgrowing  his  job.  It  was  a  fight  between  rivals 
— equals — and  Ford  knew  that  it  must  go  on  until  one 


206  EMPIEE   BUILDERS 

or  the  other  should  be  driven  to  the  wall.  Thus  far,  his 
antagonist  had  scored  every  point.  The  MacMorroghs 
had  been  helped  into  the  saddle  and  held  there.  Mr.  Col- 
brith  had  been  won  over;  the  authority  given  Ford  by 
his  appointment  as  assistant  to  the  president  had  been 
annulled  by  making  North  the  first  vice-president  with 
still  higher  authority.  With  a  firm  ally  in  the  president, 
and  a  legion  of  others  in  the  MacMorroghs'  camps,  North 
could  discredit  the  best  engineering  corps  that  ever  took 
the  field;  and  he  was  doing  it — successfully,  as  Ford 
had  reason  to  know. 

More  than  once  Ford  had  been  on  the  point  of  leav 
ing  his  plow  in  the  furrow  while  he  should  go  to  New 
York  for  one  more  battle  with  the  directory — a  battle 
which  should  definitely  abolish  North  and  Mr.  Colbrith 
— or  himself.  Again  and  again  he  had  weighed  the 
chances  of  winning  such  a  battle.  With  Brewster  for  a 
leader  it  might  be  done.  The  time  for  the  annual  stock 
holders'  meeting  was  approaching,  and  an  election  which 
should  put  the  burly  copper  magnate  into  the  presidency 
would  be  an  unmixed  blessing,  not  only  for  a  struggling 
young  chief  of  construction,  but  for  the  Pacific  South 
western  stock-holders,  who  were  sure  to  pay  in  the  end 
for  the  present  policy  of  rule  or  ruin. 

Part  of  the  time  it  seemed  to  Ford  that  it  was  clearly 
his  duty  to  make  this  fight  against  the  grafters  in  the 
Denver  management.  North  deserved  no  consideration, 


A   NIGHT    OF   ALARMS    .  207 

and  while  Mr.  Colbrith  was  honest  enough,  his  blind 
prejudice  and  narrow  mentality  made  him  North's  un 
witting  accessory.  Three  months  earlier  Ford  would 
not  have  hesitated;  but  in  the  interval  a  woman  had 
come  between  to  obscure  all  the  points  of  view.  A  fight 
to  the  death  against  the  Colbrith  administration  meant 
the  antagonizing  of  the  Adairs — of  Alicia,  at  least. 
True,  she  had  spoken  lightly  of  her  uncle's  peculiarities ; 
but  Ford  made  sure  she  would  stand  by  him  in  the  con 
flict,  if  only  for  kinship's  sake. 

All  this  he  was  turning  over  in  his  mind  for  the 
hundredth  time  while  the  big  1012  hammered  up  the 
Plug  Mountain  grade  under  the  guiding  hand  of  the 
giant  in  blue  denim.  Ford,  glooming  out  upon  the 
lighted  stretch  ahead,,  was  once  more  finding  the  crucial 
question  answerless.  Should  he  draw  out  of  the  losing 
battle  with  North  and  his  fellow  grafters,  and  thereby 
save  his  chance  of  winning  Alicia  Adair?  Or  should 
he  sacrifice  his  love  upon  the  altar  of  ambition,  abolish 
Mr.  Colbrith  and  the  crew  of  buccaneers  his  mistaken 
policy  was  sheltering,  and  win.  the  industrial  success  and 
a  quieted  conscience  ? 

His  decision  was  reached  by  the  time  Hector  was  eas 
ing  the  throttle  lever  at  the  summit  of  Plug  Pass.  What 
must  be  done  should  be  done  quickly. 

"Right  here  is  where  you  begin  to  run  on  your 
nerves,"  he  said  to  the  big  engineer,  as  the  heavy  engine 


208  EMPIEE    BUILDEES 

and  car  lunged  over  the  summit  of  the  pass  and  began 
to  gather  gravity  momentum  on  the  downward  rush. 

Hector  nodded,  and  twitched  the  handle  of  the  air- 
hrake  cock  at  shorter  intervals.  Ford  glanced  back  at 
the  following  car  framed  in  the  red  glow  from  the 
opened  fire-box  door.  It  was  surging  and  bounding 
alarmingly  over  the  uneven  track.,  not  without  threaten- 
ings  of  derailment.  Ford  was  willing  to  give  the  presi 
dent  the  full  benefit  of  his  unreasonable  pertinacity; 
but  there  were  others  to  be  considered — and  one  above 
all  the  others. 

"Easy,  man;  easy!"  he  cautioned.  "If  you  leave  the 
steel  on  this  goat-track  there  won't  be  anybody  left  to 
tell  the  story.  It's  a  thousand  feet  sheer  in  some  places 
along  here.  Suppose  you  let  me  take  her  to  the  bottom 
of  the  hill." 

The  engineer  stood  aside  with  a  good-tempered  grin. 
He  had  seen  the  chief  of  construction  walking  the  one 
young  lady  of  the  party  to  the  top  of  Plug  Pass  and 
back,  and  it  was  not  difficult  to  account  for  his  anxiety. 

Throughout  the  ten  long  miles  of  the  mountain  de 
scent  Ford  crouched  on  the  driver's  seat  and  put  his 
mind  into  the  business  of  getting  down  the  slides  and 
around  the  sagging  curves  without  having  a  wreck.  The 
1012's  brake  equipment  was  modern,  and  the  Nadia's 
gear  was  in  perfect  order.  Now  and  then  on  a  tangent 
the  big  engine  would  straighten  herself  for  a  race  or  a 


A   NIGHT    OF    ALARMS      •  209 

runaway,  but  always  the  steady  hand  on  the  air-cock 
brought  her  down  just  before  the  critical  moment  be 
yond  which  neither  brakes  nor  the  steadiest  nerve  could 
avail.  Thrice  in  the  long  downward  rush  Ford  checked 
the  speed  to  a  foot-pace.  This  was  in  the  rock  cuttings 
where  the  jagged  faces  of  the  cliffs  thrust  themselves 
out  into  the  white  cone  of  the  headlight,  scanting  the 
narrow  shelf  of  the  right-of-way  to  a  mere  groove  in  the 
rock.  He  was  afraid  of  the  cuttings.  One  of  the  many 
tricks  of  the  MacMorroghs  was  to  keep  barely  within  the 
contract  limits  on  clearance  widths,  and  once  the  Nadia, 
sagging  mountainward  on  the  roughly  leveled  track  at 
the  wrong  moment,  touched  one  of  the  out-hanging 
rocks  in  passing.  Hector  heard  the  touch,  and  so  did 
Ford;  but  it  was  the  engineman  who  made  a  grim  jest 
upon  it,  saying :  "If  she  does  that  more'n  once  or  twice, 
there'll  be  a  job  for  the  car  painters,  don't  you  reckon, 
Mr.  Ford?  And  for  the  carpenters." 

Just  below  the  doubling  bend  in  the  great  loop  they 
came  in  sight  of  the  first  of  the  MacMorrogh  camps. 
Since  the  night  was  frosty  a  huge  bonfire  was  burning 
beside  the  track;  and  when  Hector  blew  his  whistle, 
some  one  flagged  the  train  with  a  brand  snatched  from 
the  fire.  Ford  stopped  because  he  dared  not  do  other 
wise. 

"Well,  what's  wanted?"  he  snapped,  when  the  train 
came  to  a  stand,  and  the  brand-swinger,  backed  by  a 


210  EMPIRE    BUILDEES 

dozen  others,  made  as  if  lie  would  climb  to  the  cab  of 
the  1012. 

"Some  of  us  fellies  want  to  go  down  to  Ten  Mile — 
the  liquor's  out/'  said  the  man,  trying  to  get  a  fair  sight 
of  the  strange  engineman. 

"Get  off !"  said  Ford ;  and  Hector  made  the  order  ef 
fective  by  shoving  the  intruder  from  the  step.  That  was 
easy ;  but  before  the  train  had  measured  twice  its  length, 
a  pistol  barked  thrice  and  the  glass  in  the  cab  window 
on  Ford's  side  fell  in  splinters. 

"Holy  smoke!"  said  Hector.  "Is  them  the  kind  of 
plug-uglies  you've  got  over  here,  Mr.  Ford  ?" 

Ford  nodded.  His  eyes  were  on  the  track  again,  and 
he  was  hoping  fervently  that  the  three  shots  had  all 
been  aimed  at  the  engine.  A  mile  farther  on,  Penfield 
came  sliding  over  the  coal  to  say  that  the  president 
wanted  to  know  what  the  shooting  was  about. 

Ford  turned  the  1012  over  to  Hector.  The  track  haz 
ards  of  the  mountain  grade  were  safely  passed. 

"Did  any  of  the  shots  hit  the  car  ?"  he  asked  of  Pen- 
field. 

"No." 

"Well,  if  you  have  to  say  anything  before  the  ladies 
it  might  be  advisable  to  make  a  joke  of  it.  Signal  tor 
pedoes  sound  very  much  like  pistol-shots,  you  know." 

Penfield  nodded.  "But  to  Mr.  Colbrith?" 

"To  Mr.  Colbrith  you  may  say  that  a  gang  of  drunken 


A   NIGHT    OF    ALARMS     . 


MacMorrogh  surfacers  flagged  us  down,  and  when  we 
wouldn't  let  them  have  the  train,  made  a  little  gun 
play/5 

"Heavens!"  said  the  clerk,  whose  curiosity  stopped 
short  at  the  farthest  confines  of  any  battle-field.  "Is 
that  sort  of  thing  likely  to  happen  again,  Mr.  Ford  ?" 

"Your  guess  is  as  good  as  anybody's/'  said  Ford 
curtly.  "Better  get  back  to  the  car  as  quickly  as  you 
can,  before  Mr.  Colbrith  whistles  us  down  to  find  out 
what  has  become  of  you." 

Below  the  camp  of  the  surfacers  there  were  a  few 
miles  of  better  track,  and  Hector  made  fair  time  until 
the  train  circled  the  mountain  shoulder  at  the  lower  end 
of  the  great  loop.  Beyond  this  the  roughnesses  began 
again,  and  there  were  more  of  the  skimped  rock  cuttings. 
At  Ten  Mile,  which  was  a  relay  station  in  the  upper 
canyon  for  the  halting  of  supplies  and  material  for 
which  there  was  no  room  at  the  ever-advancing  "front," 
they  stopped  to  try  for  track-clearings. 

As  Leckhard  had  foretold,  the  operator  could  give 
them  little  help.  Two  hours  earlier,  a  train  of  empties 
in  two  sections  had  left  the  end-of-track,  coming  east 
ward.  Whether  it  was  hung  up  at  one  of  the  intervening 
side-tracks,  or  was  still  coming,  the  operator  could  not 
say  ;  and  there  were  no  means  of  finding  out.  Also,  Mr. 
Frisbie,  who  had  reached  Riley's  camp  late  in  the  after 
noon,  had  left  there  after  supper  and  was  somewhere  on 


212  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

the  line  with,  his  light  engine — probably  on  his  way  to 
the  front,  the  operator  thought. 

Hector  removed  his  great  weight  from  the  telegraph 
counter  and  the  woodwork  creaked  its  relief.  What  he 
said  was  indicative  of  his  frame  of  mind. 

"Humph !"  he  growled.  "If  we  don't  get  tangled  up 
with  Mr.  Frisbie's  light  engine,  it's  us  for  a  head-ender 
with  the  string  of  empties.  Isn't  that  about  it,  Mr. 
Ford?" 

"That's  it,  precisely." 

"Which  means  that  Jimmy  Shovel  trots  ahead  of  us 
for  a  hundred  mile  'r  so,  carryin'  a  lantern  like  a  blame' 
Dio-geenes  huntin'  for  an  honest-man." 

"That  is  the  size  of  it,"  said  Ford ;  but  just  then  the 
sounder  on  the  table  began  to  click  and  the  operator  held 
up  his  hand  for  silence. 

"Hold  on  a  minute,"  he  interrupted,  "here's  a  piece 
of  luck — it's  Mr.  Frisbie,  cutting  in  with  his  field  set 
from  Camp  Frierson.  He  is  asking  Saint's  Rest  about 
you." 

"Break  in  and  tell  him  we're  here,"  said  Ford;  and 
when  it  was  done:  "Ask  him  about  that  string  of 
empties." 

The  reply  was  apparently  another  piece  of  luck. 
Frisbie,  going  westward,  had  passed  the  first  section  of 
the  freight  train  at  Siding  Number  Twelve.  It  was 
hung  up  with  a  broken  draw-head  on  the  engine,  and 


A   NIGHT    OF    ALARMS 

was  safe  to  stay  there,  Frisbie  thought,  until  somebody 
came  along  with  a  repair  kit,  which,  it  might  be  as 
sumed,  would  not  be  before  morning. 

At  this  point  Ford  went  around  the  counter  and  took 
the  wire  for  a  little  personal  talk  with  the  first  assist 
ant.  It  ignored  the  stalled  freight  train,  and  Ford's 
rapid  clickings  spelled  out  an  order.  Frisbie  was  to  drop 
everything  else,  and  constitute  himself  the  president's 
avant-courrier  to  the  end-of-track  camp,  which,  at  the 
moment,  happened  to  be  the  MacMorroghs'  headquarters 
at  the  mouth  of  Horse  Creek.  All  liquor-selling  was  to 
be  stopped,  the  saloons  closed,  and  the  strictest  order 
maintained  during  the  president's  stay — this  if  it  should 
take  the  entire  field  force  of  the  engineering  department 
to  bring  it  to  pass. 

"Don't,"  clicked  Frisbie,  from  the  other  end  of  the 
long  wire.  And  then  at  the  risk  of  giving  it  away  to 
every  operator  on  the  line :  "You're  doing  yourself  up. 
Let  the  president  see  for  himself  what  he  has  let  us  in 
for." 

Ford's  reply  was  short  and  to  the  point.  "The  order 
stands.  There  are  others  besides  the  president  to  be  con 
sidered.  Good  night." 

"Well,  we  go  to  this  here  Siding  Number  Twelve,  do 
we?"  said  Hector,  when  they  were  clambering  once 
more  to  the  foot-plate  of  the  1012. 

"Safely,  I  think,"  said  the  chief,  adding:  "You  can't 


EMPIEE    BUILDERS 

run  fast  enough  over  this  track  to  get  into  trouble,  any 
way." 

That  was  the  way  it  appealed  to  Hector  for  the  suc 
ceeding  twenty  miles.  When  the  track  was  not  too  rough 
to  forbid  speed,  the  cuts  were  too  numerous,  and  the  big 
flyer  had  to  be  bitted  and  held  down  until  some  of  Hec 
tor's  impatience  began  to  get  into  the  machinery.  This 
shall  account  as  it  may  for  what  happened.  A  mile  or 
two  below  Riley's,  where  the  lights  were  all  out  and  the 
turmoil  of  the  day  of  strikes  had  apparently  subsided, 
the  canyon  opened  out  into  a  winding  valley,  and  when 
Ford  called  across  to  Hector:  "There  are  no  rock  cuts 
on  this  section,  and  we  are  partly  surfaced.  You  can  let 
her  out  a  little  for  a  few  miles,"  the  engineer  took  the 
permission  for  all  it  was  worth  and  sent  the  eight- 
wheeler  flying  down  the  newly-ballasted  stretch. 

Two  long  curves  were  rounded  in  safety,  and  the  spe 
cial  was  approaching  a  third,  when  to  Ford,  track- 
watching  even  more  anxiously  than  Hector,  a  dull  red 
spot  appeared  in  the  exact  center  of  the  white  field  of 
the  electric.  For  a  moment  it  puzzled  him,  but  the  ex 
planation  came  with  a  vigorous  shock  an  instant  later. 
It  was  the  oil-lamp  headlight  of  the  freight ! 

Hector  was  huge  enough  to  be  slow,  if  bigness  were  a 
bar  to  celerity.  But  no  drill-master  of  the  foot-plates 
could  have  brought  the  flying  train  to  a  stand  with  the 
loss  of  fewer  seconds.  Happily,  too,  the  1012's  electric 


A   NIGHT    OF   ALARMS      .  215 

headlight  served  as  a  danger  signal  seen  from  afar  by 
the  engineer  of  the  freight.  So  it  chanced  that  the  two 
great  engines  merely  put  their  noses  together;  and  by 
the  time  Penfield  came  scrambling  over  the  coal  with 
the  inevitable  query  from  the  president,  the  jolting  stop 
was  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  the  train  was  in  motion 
again,  following  the  freight,  which  was  backing,  at 
Ford's  order,  to  the  nearest  siding. 

"No  more  hurry  for  us  to-night,  Hector,"  was  the 
boss's  dictum,  when  the  obstructing  string  of  empties 
was  safely  passed.  "We  take  it  slow  and  sure  from  this 
on,  with  your  fireman  to  flag  us  around  the  curves  and 
through  the  cuts.  This  was  only  the  first  section  of  the 
train  that  left  Horse  Creek  at  eight  o'clock — the  section 
that  was  broken  down  at  Siding  Twelve.  We're  due  to 
pick  up  the  second  section  anywhere  between  here  and 
the  end-of -track." 

"Slow  it  is,"  said  Hector.  "I'm  no  hog,  if  I  do  take  a 
little  swill  now  and  then :  I  know  when  I've  got  enough." 

This  was  at  ten-forty,  while  the  night  was  still  young. 
And  for  seven  other  hours  the  one-car  special  inched  its 
way  cautiously  toward  the  goal,  with  Ford  scanning 
every  mile  of  the  hazardous  way  as  it  swung  into  the 
beam  of  the  headlight  arc,  with  Hector's  left  hand  stiff 
ening  on  the  brake-cock,  and  with  a  weary  fireman  drop 
ping  from  his  gangway  at  every  curve  approach  to  flag 
for  safety. 


216  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

It  was  not  until  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  that  they 
met  and  passed  the  second  section  of  empties,  and  the 
dawn  of  a  new  day  was  fully  come  when  the  shacks  and 
storehouses  of  the  MacMorroghs'  headquarters  at  the 
mouth  of  Horse  Creek  came  in  sight.  Ford  got  down 
from  his  seat  on  the  fireman's  side  and  stretched  him 
self  as  one  relaxing  after  a  mighty  strain. 

"That's  the  end  of  it  for  a  little  while,  Billy/'  he 
said,  addressing  the  big  engineer  as  a  man  and  a  brother. 
"Crawl  in  on  the  first  siding  you  come  to,  and  go  hunt 
you  a  bed.  I  don't  think  the  president  will  be  perni 
ciously  active  to-day — after  such  a  night  as  we've  had." 

But  in  this,  as  in  other  instances  when  Mr.  Colbrith's 
activities  had  figured  as  a  factor.,  he  reckoned  without 
his  host. 


XVIII 

THE   MOBNItfG  AFTER 

Ford  was  awake  for  all  day,  and  was  colloguing  with 
Frisbie  about  the  carrying  out  of  the  sumptuary  order 
for  the  forcible  camp-cleaning,  when  Penfield  came  with 
the  request  that  the  chief  report  at  once  to  the  presi 
dent  in  the  Nadia. 

"Tell  him  I'll  be  there  presently/'  was  the  answer; 
and  when  Penfield  went  to  do  it,  the  interrupted  col 
loquy  was  resumed. 

"You  say  the  camp  has  already  gone  dry  ?"  said  Ford 
incredulously. 

Frisbie  nodded.  "Everybody's  on  the  water-wagon; 
here  and  at  all  the  camps  above  and  below — bars  not 
only  closed,  but  apparently  wiped  out  of  existence.  I 
went  for  old  Brian  last  night  as  soon  as  I  reached  here. 
He  looked  at  me  reproachfully,  and  said :  'It's  you  to  be 
always  naggin'  me  about  thim  whisky  dives  that  I'm  for 
ever  thryin'  to  run  out,  and  can't.  Go  and  thry  it  your 
self,  Misther  Frisbie,  an'  I'll  stand  at  your  back  till 

217 


218  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

you're  black  in  the  face/  But  when  I  went  through  the 
camp,  everything  was  quiet  and  orderly,  and  Jack  Bat 
ters'  bar  was  not  only  closed — it  was  gone;  vanished 
without  leaving  so  much  as  a  bad  smell  behind  it." 
"And  then?"  said  Ford. 

"Then  I  got  out  my  horse  and  rode  up  the  creek  and 
through  some  of  the  camps  on  the  Cop  ah  detour.  The 
star-eyed  goddess  of  reform  had  evidently  landed  on 
that  coast,  too.  Donahue's  Hungarians  were  singing 
war-songs  around  their  camp-fire,  as  usual,  and  Con- 
tadini's  Tuscans  were  out  in  full  force,  guying  the  night- 
shift  track-layers.  But  there  was  no  bad  blood,  and  no 
whisky  to  breed  it.  You're  done  up  again,  Stuart." 

"I  don't  see  that,"  said  Ford,  who,  besides  being  short 
on  sleep,  was  rejoicing  in  the  thought  that  Alicia  and 
the  other  women  of  the  private-car  party  would  not  have 
to  be  blind  and  deaf. 

"Don't  you  ?  You've  been  protesting  to  beat  the  band 
about  the  lawlessness  and  dissipation  of  the  MacMorrogh 
camps.  Accordingly,  Mr.  Colbrith  comes  over  here  to  see 
for  himself :  and  what  will  he  see  ?  Decency  on  a  monu 
ment  smiling  reproachfully  at  her  unprincipled  tra- 
ducer.  MacMorrogh  will  rub  it  into  you  good  and  hard. 
Can't  you  feel  the  Sunday-school  atmosphere  right  here 
in  the  headquarters  this  morning  ?  Look  down  yonder  at 
the  Nadia — wouldn't  that  soothe  you,  now  ?" 

Ford  looked  and  the  scowl  which  was  coming  to  be  a 


THE    MORNING   AFTER  219 

habit  transformed  itself  into  a  cynical  smile.  A  hundred 
or  more  of  the  MacMorrogh  laborers,  hats  off  and  stand 
ing  at  respectful  attention,  were  clustered  about  the  rear 
platform  of  the  private  car,  and  Mr.  Colbrith  was  ad 
dressing  them ;  giving  them  the  presidential  benediction, 
as  Frisbie  put  it  irreverently. 

"Don't  you  see  how  you  are  going  to  be  hoisted  with 
your  own  ammunition?"  the  little  man  went  on  spite 
fully.  "What  becomes  of  all  your  complaints  of  drunk 
enness  and  crime,  when  Mr.  Colbrith  can  see  with  his 
own  eyes  what  truly  good  people  the  MacMorroghs  are  ? 
And  what  conclusion  will  he  arrive  at?  There's  only 
one,  and  it's  a  long-armed  one  so  far  as  your  reputation 
is  concerned :  you  are  so  desperately  bent  on  having  your 
own  way  that  you  haven't  scrupled  to  tell  lies  about 
these  angelic  contractors." 

"Let  up,  Dick,"  said  Ford  gruffly.  "I've  got  about  all 
I  can  carry  till  I  catch  up  on  sleep  a  little.  But  you're 
right:  this  is  the  place  where  the  fireworks  come  in.  I 
think  I'll  go  and  light  the  fuses  while  I'm  keyed  up 
to  it." 

The  crowd  of  laborers  had  dispersed  by  the  time  Ford 
reached  the  Nadia,  and  the  president,  benign  from  the 
reactionary  effect  of  his  own  early-morning  eloquence, 
was  waiting  for  him. 

"Ah;  we  did  reach  the  front  safely,  after  all,  didn't 
we,  Mr.  Ford?"  was  Mr.  Colbrith's  mildly  sarcastic 


220  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

greeting.  And  then :  "Come  aboard,  sir ;  we  are  waiting 
breakfast  for  you." 

Ford  would  have  declined  promptly,  if  the  invitation 
had  been  anything  less  than  a  command.  He  had  met 
none  of  the  members  of  the  private-car  party  save  Miss 
Alicia,  and  he  did  not  want  to  meet  them,  having  the 
true  captain-of-industry's  horror  of  mixing  business 
with  the  social  diversions.  But  with  one  example  of  the 
president's  obstinacy  fresh  in  mind,  he  yielded  and 
climbed  obediently  to  the  railed  platform.  Whatever 
happened,  he  should  see  Alicia  again,  a  privilege  never 
to  be  too  lightly  esteemed,  whatever  it  cost. 

The  social  ordeal  was  not  so  formidable.  The  private- 
car  party  was  made  up  of  the  president  and  his  sister- 
in-law,  the  president's  family  physician,  Doctor  Van 
Bruce,  the  doctor's  wife,  his  sister,  a  maiden  lady  of  no 
uncertain  age,  and  Alicia.  These,  with  Penfield  and 
Ford,  made  the  eight  at  table  in  the  open  compartment 
in  the  Nadia;  and  Ford,  in  the  seating,  was  lucky 
enough  to  find  his  place  between  Miss  Van  Bruce,  who 
was  hard  of  hearing,  and  Miss  Alicia,  who  was  not. 
Luckily  again,  Mr.  Colbrith  omitted  all  talk  of  business, 
drawing  his  end  of  the  table  into  a  discussion  of  the  ef 
fects  of  the  dry  altitudes  in  advanced  stages  of  tuber 
culosis. 

ccWhat  a  dreadful  night  you  must  have  had,  Mr. 
Ford,"  said  Alicia,  when  the  tuberculotic  subject  was 


THE    MOKNING   AFTER 


well  launched  at  the  other  end  of  the  table.  ".Were  you 
on  the  engine  all  the  time  ?" 

"Most  of  the  time/'  he  confessed.  "But  that  was 
nothing.  It  wasn't  my  first  night  in  the  cab,  as  it  won't 
be  the  last,  by  many,  I  hope." 

"Why?  Do  you  like  it?" 

"Not  particularly.  But  I  hope  to  live  a  while  longer  ; 
and  while  I  live  I  shall  doubtless  have  to  ride  with  the 
enginemen  now  and  then." 

"Was  it  very  bad  —  last  night  ?"  she  asked. 

"I  am  afraid  you  know  it  was.  Could  you  sleep  at 
all?" 

"Oh,  yes  ;  I  slept  very  well  —  after  that  terrible  shak 
ing  up  we  had  just  before  bedtime.  What  was  happen 
ing  then?" 

"Nothing  much.  We  were  about  to  try  the  old  experi 
ment  of  passing  two  trains  on  a  single  track." 

"Mercy  !"  she  exclaimed. 

It  was  safely  retrospective  now,  and  Ford  could  smile 
at  her  belated  shock. 

crWere  the  others  alarmed  ?"  he  asked. 

"Mrs.  Van  Bruce  and  Aunt  Hetty  were.  But  Uncle 
Sidney  fairly  coruscated.  He  said  that  an  engineer  who 
would  make  such  a  stop  as  that  ought  to  be  discharged." 

"Hector  was  willing  to  quit,"  laughed  Ford.  "He 
grumbled  for  a  full  hour  afterward  about  the  wrench 
ing  he  had  given  the  1012.  You  see  he  might  have 


222  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

taken  about  six  feet  more  for  the  stop,  if  He'd  only 
known  it." 

Miss  Alicia  said  "Mercy !"  again.  "Were  we  as  near  as 
that  to  a  collision  ?"  she  asked,  in  a  hushed  whisper. 

"We  were,  indeed.  The  freight  was  supposed  to  be  on 
a  siding — broken  down.  The  crew  tinkered  things  up 
some  way,  and  the  train  proceeded.  Luckily,  the  freight 
engineer  saw  our  electric  headlight  farther  than  we 
could  see  his  oil  lamp,  and  the  track  happened  to  be 
measurably  straight." 

Miss  Adair  was  silent  for  a  little  time,  waiting  for 
the  lapsed  tuberculotic  discussion  to  revive.  When  it 
was  once  more  in  full  swing,  she  asked  quickly : 

"What  is  the  programme  for  to-day  ?  Must  we  all  stay 
in  the  car  as  you  intimated  yesterday  ?" 

Ford  glanced  across  the  table  to  make  sure  that  Pen- 
field  was  not  eavesdropping. 

"It  will  not  be  necessary.  Your  coming — or  the  presi 
dent's — has  reformed  things  wonderfully.  Frisbie  says 
— but  never  mind  what  he  says:  the  miracle  has  been 
wrought." 

He  said  it  with  such  an  evident  air  of  dejection  that 
she  wondered.  And  with  Miss  Alicia  Adair  the  step 
from  wonderment  to  investigation  was  always  short. 

"You  say  it  as  if  you  were  sorry,"  she  said.  "Are 
you?" 

"Oh,  no;  I'm  glad — for  your  sake.   But  I  wonder  if 


THE    MORNING   AFTER  223 

you  could  understand  if  I  say  that  it  will  make  it  a  thou 
sand  times  harder  for  me  ?" 

"I  can  understand  when  I'm  told/'  she  retorted. 

The  table-f or-eight  was  no  place  for  confidences ;  and 
Ford  knew  Penfield's  weakness  for  soaking  up  informa 
tion.  Yet  he  took  the  risk. 

"You  remember  what  I  hinted  at,  yesterday,"  he  said 
in  low  tones ;  "about  the  rough-house  we  have  been  hav 
ing  in  the  camps.  It  hasn't  stopped  short  of  murder.  I 
objected  to  the  MacMorroghs  before  the  contract  was 
given  to  them ;  and  since,  I  have  fought  the  lawlessness 
as  I  could.  Now  your  uncle  comes  over  here  and  doesn't 
find  any  lawlessness.  What  is  the  inference  ?" 

"That  you  have  been—"  she  took  him  up  quickly,  and 
there  was  swift  indignation  in  the  blue  eyes. 

" — lying  to  gain  a  personal  end,"  he  finished  for  her. 

Penfield  had  been  apparently  listening  avidly  to  the 
president's  praise  of  the  dry  altitudes  as  a  sure  cure 
for  consumption,  but  now  he  had  his  face  in  his  plate. 
Ford  devoted  himself  for  the  moment  to  the  deaf  Miss 
Van  Bruce,  and  when  he  turned  back  to  Alicia  he  was 
telegraphing  with  his  eyes  for  discretion.  She  under 
stood,  and  the  low-toned  tete-a-tete  was  not  resumed. 
Later,  when  they  had  a  moment  together  in  the  disper 
sion  from  the  breakfast-table,  he  tried  to  apologize  for 
what  he  was  pleased  to  call  his  "playing  of  the  baby 
act."  But  she  reassured  him  in  a  low-spoken  word. 


224:  EMPIEE    BUILDERS 

"Brother  told  me — I  know  more  than  you  give  me 
credit  for,  Mr.  Ford.  Mr.  North  doesn't  like  you — he 
would  be  glad  if  you  would  resign.  You  must  not  re- 
sign!" 

The  others,  personally-conducted  by  Mr.  Colbrith, 
were  crowding  to  the  rear  platform  for  an  after-break 
fast  view  of  the  headquarters  camp.  Ford  and  Alicia 
followed,  but  without  haste. 

"You  have  chanced  upon  the  word,  Miss  Adair,"  Ford 
was  saying.  "I  decided  last  night  that  I  should  resign." 

"No,"  she  objected. 

"Yes ;  I  must.   Sometime  I  may  tell  you  why." 

"I  say  you  must  not.  That  was  the  last  word  in  broth 
er's  letter;  and  he  wished  me  to  repeat  it  to  you,"  she 
insisted. 

"Where  is  your  brother  ?"  he  asked. 

"He  was  in  London  when  he  wrote." 

"He  has  thrown  up  his  hand."  Ford  was  pessimistic 
again. 

Miss  Adair  looked  about  her  despairingly  for  some 
means  of  prolonging  the  whispered  confidence.  Penfield, 
deferentially  in  the  rear  of  the  platform  group,  was 
never  safely  out  of  earshot. 

"I  want  to  see  the  engine  that  so  nearly  plunged  us 
into  a  collision  last  night,"  she  said  aloud;  and  Pen- 
field's  visible  ear  betrayed  the  listening  mind. 

Ford  took  his  cue  promptly.  "We  can  go  out  the  other 


THE    MORNING    AFTER       .          225 

way/'  he  said ;  and  the  secretary  pro  tempore  had  no  ex 
cuse  for  following. 

They  found  the  cab  of  the  1012  deserted,  with  the 
steam  in  the  huge  boiler  singing  softly  at  the  behest  of 
the  banked  fire.  Miss  Adair  lost  her  curiosity  as  soon  as 
Ford  had  lifted  her  to  the  foot-plate. 

"Now  you  are  to  tell  me  all  about  it — quickly/'  she 
commanded.  "Uncle  Sidney  will  be  calling  for  you  as 
soon  as  he  misses  you.  Why  are  you  so  foolish  as  to  talk 
about  resigning  ?  Don't  you  see  what  they  will  say  then  ? 
— that  you  were  afraid  ?" 

Ford  was  leaning  against  the  centered  reversing-lever, 
and  his  face  was  gloomy  again. 

"Possibly  I  am  afraid/'  he  suggested. 

"You  should  be  more  afraid  of  dishonor  than  of — of 
the  other  things.  Do  you  suppose  Mr.  North  will  be 
content  with  your  resignation  now  ?" 

Ford  looked  up  quickly.  Here  was  a  new  revelation 
— an  unsuspected  facet  of  the  precious  gem.  He  could 
hardly  believe  that  this  steady-voiced,  far-seeing  young 
woman  was  the  insouciant,  school-girlish — though  none 
the  less  lovable — young  person  with  whom  he  had 
tramped  to  the  wind-swept  summit  of  Plug  Pass  in  the 
golden  heart  of  the  yesterday. 

"You  mean —  ?"  he  began. 

"I  mean  that  you  will  be  discredited;  disgraced  if 
possible.  Are  you  sure  you  haven't  been  doing  anything 


226  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

over  here  that  yon  wouldn't  want  Uncle  Sidney  to  find 
out?" 

"Not  consciously,  you  may  be  sure,"  he  asserted  un 
hesitatingly. 

"Think;  think  hard/'  she  urged.  "Is  there  nothing 
at  all?" 

He  could  not  help  smiling  lovingly  at  her  scarce-con 
cealed  anxiety — though  it  was  merely  the  anxiety  of  a 
noble  soul  unwilling  to  stand  by  and  see  injustice  done. 

"My  methods  never  get  very  far  underground/'  he 
averred.  "Not  far  enough  for  my  own  safety,  Frisbie 
says.  If  I  had  been  keeping  a  diary,  I  think  I  should 
be  quite  willing  to  let  Mr.  Colbrith  read  it — or  print  it, 
if  he  cared  to." 

"And  yet  there  is  something,"  she  asserted,  and  the 
straight  brows  went  together  in  a  little  frown  of  per 
plexity.  "You  don't  ask  me  how  I  know:  I'm  going  to 
tell  you,  Mr.  Ford — though  it's  rather  shameful.  Three 
days  ago,  while  we  were  in  Denver,  Mr.  North  came 
down  to  the  car  to  see  Uncle  Sidney." 

"Yes?"  he  encouraged. 

"They  were  closeted  in  Uncle  Sidney's  state-room 
for  a  long  time,"  she  went  on.  "I — I  was  walking  with 
Miss  Van  Bruce,  up  and  down  on  the  station  platform 
beside  the  Nadia.  Uncle  Sidney  had  told  me  not  to  go 
very  far  away  because  we  were  likely  to  start  at  any 
moment.  The — the  car  windows  were  open — " 


THE    MOENING   AFTER  227 

Her  embarrassment  was  growing  painfully  apparent, 
and  Ford  came  to  the  rescue. 

"You  were  not  even  constructively  to  blame/'  lie  has 
tened  to  say.  "They  must  surely  have  seen  you  passing 
and  repassing,  and  if  they  wished  for  privacy  they 
might  have  closed  the  windows." 

"I  didn't  hear  much:  only  a  word  or  two,  now  and 
then.  They  were  talking  about  you  and  brother;  and— 
She  stopped  short  and  laid  her  hand  on  the  throttle-lever 
of  the  big  engine :  "What  did  you  say  this  was  for  ?"  she 
asked  ingenuously. 

Ford's  up-glance  of  surprise  was  answered  by  a 
glimpse  of  Penfield  sauntering  past  on  the  other  side  of 
the  track.  She  could  not  have  seen,  but  she  had  doubt 
less  heard  his  footsteps  on  the  gravel. 

"It's  the  throttle,"  said  Ford,  answering  her  question. 
And  then :  "Please  go  on :  he  is  out  of  hearing." 

"They  were  speaking  of  you  and  brother;  and — and 
of  me.  I  can't  repeat  a  single  sentence  entire,  but  I 
know  Mr.  North  was  accusing  you  in  some  way,  and 
apparently  implicating  me.  Perhaps  I  listened  in  self- 
defense.  Do  you  think  I  did,  Mr.  Ford  ?" 

"You  certainly  had  a  good  right  to,"  said  Ford,  who 
would  have  sworn  in  her  behalf  that  the  morally  black 
was  spotlessly  white.  "But  how  could  you  be  impli 
cated?" 

"That  was  what  puzzled  me  then — and  it  is  puzzling 


228  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

me  still.  They  said — or  rather  Mr.  North  said — that 
you — that  you  had  bought  me!" 

Ford  did  not  say  that  he  would  like  to  buy,  beg, 
borrow  or  steal  any  kind  of  right  to  call  her  his  own, 
but  if  his  lips  did  not  form  the  words  they  were  lying 
at  the  bottom  of  the  steady  gray  eyes  for  her  to  take 
or  leave  as  she  chose. 

"I  am  sure  you  couldn't  have  heard  that  part  of  it 
quite  straight,"  he  said,  almost  regretfully. 

"But  I  did,  because  it  was  repeated.  Mr.  North  in 
sisted  that  you  had  bought  me ;  and  I  didn't  like  the  way 
in  which  he  said  it,  either.  He  called  me  'the  little 
Alicia'." 

"What  I"  said  Ford ;  and  then  a  flood  of  light  burst 
in  upon  at  least  one  of  the  dark  places.  "It's  only  a 
mine,"  he  said  sheepishly.  "And  I  did  buy  it,  or  half 
of  it." 

She  was  regarding  him  accusingly  now. 

"Did  you — did  you  name  it?"  she  asked,  and  there 
was  the  merest  breath  of  frost  in  the  air. 

He  was  glad  to  be  able  to  tell  the  truth  without  flinch 
ing. 

"No ;  it  is  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  Copah  prospects, 
and  I  suppose  the  discoverer  named  it.  I  am  willing 
to  defend  his  choice,  though.  He  couldn't  have  found 
a  prettier  name." 

She  went  back  to  the  matter  in  hand  with  womanly 


THE    MORNING    AFTER  229 

swiftness.  "But  the  mine:  you  had  a  right  to  buy  it, 
didn't  you?" 

"I  should  suppose  so.  I  paid  for  it  with  my  own 
money,  anyway." 

"Then  why  should  Mr.  North  use  it  as  an  argument 
against  you  in  speaking  to  Uncle  Sidney  ?  He  did  that — 
I  am  sure  he  did  that." 

"Now  the  water  has  grown  too  deep  for  me,"  said 
Ford.  "Why,  North,  himself,  is  interested  in  Copah, 
openly.  He  owns  half  a  dozen  claims." 

"Near  yours  ?"  she  queried. 

Ford  stopped  to  consider.  "To  tell  the  truth,  I  don't 
know  where  mine  is,"  he  confessed.  "I  bought  it  as  the 
school-boys  trade  pocket-knives — sight  unseen.  You 
wouldn't  believe  it  of  a  grown  man,  would  you?" 

"What  made  you  buy  it  at  all?" 

Again  he  told  the  simple  truth — and  tried  not  to 
flinch. 

"You  won't  mind  if  I  say  that  the  name  attracted 
me?  I  thought  a  mine,  or  anything,  that  bore  your 
name,  ought  to  be  good  and — and  desirable.  And  it  is 
a  good  mine ;  or  it  will  be,  by  and  by.  Some  morning  I 
shall  wake  up  and  find  myself  rich.  At  least  that  is 
what  my  partner,  Grigsby,  assures  me;  and  I  believe 
him  when  I  happen  to  remember  it." 

She  neither  approved  nor  disapproved.  When  she 
spoke,  it  was  of  the  present  necessity.  "We  must  go 


23Q  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

back  to  the  others  now/'  she  said.  "Or  at  least  I  must. 
Do  you  know  what  is  to  be  done  to-day  ?" 

Ford  spread  his  hands. 

"Your  uncle  will  set  the  pace.  I  wouldn't  venture  a 
guess,  after  last  night." 

He  was  handing  her  down  from  the  engine  step  and 
she  went  back  in  a  word  to  the  former  contention. 

"You  haven't  promised  me  yet  that  you  will  not  re 
sign  under  fire — you  are  under  fire,  you  know." 

"Ami?" 

"Brother  thinks  you  are." 

Once  more  he  took  the  pessimistic  view. 

"Your  brother  isn't  losing  any  sleep  over  the  Pacific 
Southwestern  situation.  You  said  he  was  in  England, 
didn't  you?" 

"I  said  he  was  in  London  when  he  wrote." 

"London  is  a  long  way  off:  and  what  I  do  must  be 
done  to-day  or  to-morrow.  Mr.  North  will  force  the 
fighting,  now  that  your  uncle  is  on  the  ground,  and 
your  brother  safely  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  earth. 
And  I  can't  afford  to  fight  this  time,  Miss  Alicia." 

"Why  can't  you?" 

They  were  walking  slowly  back  toward  the  Nadia 
when  he  said:  "Because  a  victory  would  cost  me  more 
than  I  am  willing  to  pay.  There  is  no  longer  room  in 
this  service  for  Mr.  North  and  me.  If  we  come  to  blows 
one  of  us  will  have  to  go." 


THE    MORNING   AFTER  23 

"I  can  understand  that/'  she  said  quietly. 

"And  to  obliterate  Mr.  North,  I  shall  be  obliged  t 
efface — your  uncle." 

She  caught  her  breath. 

"Mr.  Ford,  you  have  intimated  that  Mr.  North  isn' 
an  honest  man.  Do  you  ask  me  to  believe  that  Uncl 
Sidney  is  his  accomplice?" 

"He  is  not,  knowingly.  But  he  will  stand  or  fall  wit! 
the  man  he  has  made.  I  should  have  to  ride  him  dowi 
before  I  could  get  at  North." 

Her  lip  curled  and  the  straight-browed  little  frowi 
came  again.  "There  is  no  such  thing  as  mercy  in  busi 
ness,  is  there,  Mr.  Ford?  My  uncle  is  an  old  man  an< 
his  presidency  means  more  to  him — " 

"I  understand  that  perfectly,"  said  Ford  soberly 
"That  is  why  I  prefer  to  step  down  and  out  and  le 
some  other  man  have  the  glory  of  finishing  the  exten 
sion." 

She  looked  up  quickly. 

"Would  you  do  that  for  Uncle  Sidney?  He  hasn' 
been  very  lenient  with  you,  has  he  ?" 

Ford  ignored  the  query. 

"He  is  your  uncle,  Miss  Alicia;  and  I'd  do  it  for  you 
sake  or  not  at  all." 

They  had  reached  the  steps  of  the  private  car,  an< 
Frisbie  was  waiting  with  evident  impatience  for  a  won 
with  Ford.  Miss  Adair's  eyes  signaled  emotion,  am 


EMPIRE    BUILDERS 


Ford  thought  it  was  resentment.  But  her  parting  word 
was  not  resentful  ;  it  was  merely  a  repetition. 

"Go  to  Mr.  Frisbie,"  she  said  from  the  car  step;  "he 
is  waiting  for  you."  And  then:  "Remember;  whatever 
happens,,  you  must  not  resign  —  not  even  if  Uncle  Sidney 
asks  you  to." 

Frisbie's  information,  given  after  Miss  Adair  had 
gone  in,  was  rather  mystifying.  Young  Benson,  who 
was  just  in  from  the  grade  work  beyond  Copah,  brought 
word  of  a  party  of  strange  engineers  running  lines  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  river  from  the  rejected  S.  L. 
&  W.  short-cut  through  the  canyon  of  shale  slides. 
Questioned  by  Benson,  they  had  told  what  Frisbie  be 
lieved  to  be  a  fairy  tale.  The  chief  of  the  party  claimed 
to  be  the  newly-elected  county  surveyor  from  Copah, 
running  the  lines  for  some  mining  property  recently 
filed  for  entry.  Benson  had  not  been  over  curious  ;  but 
he  was  observant  enough  to  note  that  the  tale  was  a  mis 
fit  in  three  important  particulars.  He  saw  no  locating 
stakes,  such  as  a  prospector  always  sets  up  conspicu 
ously  to  mark  his  claim  ;  and  there  were  no  signs  of  the 
precious  metal,  and  no  holes  to  indicate  an  attempt  to 
find  it. 

"What's  your  guess,  Dick  ?"  said  Ford  tersely. 

The  assistant  shook  his  head. 

"I  haven't  any  coming  to  me.  But  I  don't  like  mys 
teries." 


THE    MOKNING   AFTER  23 

"Where  was  this  party  ?" 

"About  a  mile  and  a  half  below  here.  It  was  goin 
out  toward  Copah  when  Jack  met  it — its  work,  whai 
ever  it  was,  all  done,  apparently." 

It  was  one  of  Frisbie's  gifts  to  be  suspicious;  bu 
Ford  was  lacking  on  that  side. 

"It's  barely  possible  that  the  man  was  telling  th 
truth,  in  spite  of  Benson's  failure  to  find  any  prospec 
holes,"  he  remarked.  "We'll  let  it  go  at  that  until  w 
know  something  different.  It  couldn't  be  a  Transcont: 
nental  party,  this  far  from  home,  and  we  haven't  an} 
body  else  to  fear." 

Frisbie  dropped  the  subject  as  one  of  the  abstractior 
and  took  up  the  concrete. 

"What  are  the  orders  for  to-day?"  he  asked. 

"I  don't  know.    I'm  waiting  for  Mr.  Colbrith  to  say. 

"There  are  two  buckboard  teams  here,  in  the  Ma< 
Morrogh  stables — came  over  from  Copah  last  nigh 
What  are  they  for?" 

"I  don't  know.  Another  of  the  president's  little  su: 
prises,  I  suppose.  We'll  know  when  he  sends  for  me, 

The  expected  summons  came  at  that  precise  momen 
transmitted  by  Penfield.  Mr.  Colbrith  would  like  to  s< 
Mr.  Ford  in  his  private  state-room  in  the  Nadia.  Tl 
secretary  had  a  sheaf  of  telegrams  in  his  hand,  ar 
wished  to  be  directed  to  the  wire  office.  Frisbie  took  hi: 
in  charge,  and  Ford  went  to  obey  the  summons. 


234  EMPIKE   BUILDEES 

The  president  was  sitting  very  erect  in  his  swing 
chair  when  the  young  engineer  let  himself  into  the  box- 
like  compartment,  and  his  voice  was  at  its  thinnest 
when  he  said :  "Be  seated,  Mr.  Ford." 

Ford  sat  down  on  the  divan-couch,  and  the  president 
plunged  at  once  into  business. 

"Some  time  ago,  you  advised  me,  as  chairman  of  the 
executive  committee,  that  you  had  decided  upon  a 
change  of  route,  Mr.  Ford,"  he  began  raspingly.  "What 
were  your  reasons  for  making  the  change  ?" 

"I  stated  them  in  my  letter  of  advice,"  said  Ford; 
"economy  in  construction  and  greater  safety  in  oper 
ating,  as  against  a  slight  increase  in  the  length  of  the 
line." 

"Twelve  miles,  I  believe  you  said:  that  is  a  very 
considerable  increase,  I  should  say.  The  great  eastern 
companies  are  spending  millions  of  dollars,  Mr.  Ford, 
to  shorten  their  lines  by  half-mile  cut-offs." 

Ford  had  his  reply  ready. 

"The  conditions  are  entirely  different.  It  will  be 
many  years  before  a  fast  through  service  is  either  prac 
ticable  or  profitable  over  the  extension;  and  when  it 
comes  to  that,  we  shall  still  have  the  short  line  from 
Denver  to  Green  Butte  by  forty-two  miles.  But  I  ex 
plained  all  this  at  the  time,  Mr.  Colbrith,  and  I  under 
stood  that  I  had  the  executive  committee's  approval  of 
the  changed  route." 


THE    MORNING    AFTER  235 

"Qualifiedly,  Mr.  Ford;  only  qualifiedly.  Yet  you 
have  gone  ahead  in  your  usual  impetuous  way,  aban 
doning  the  short  line  through  the  canyon  and  building 
the  detour.  Your  motive  for  haste  must  have  been  a 
very  strong  one — very  strong." 

"It  was.   I  am  not  here  to  kill  time." 

"So  it  appears.  But  I  am  here,  Mr.  Ford,  to  consider 
carefully,  and  to  investigate.  We  shall  go  first  over  this 
route  you  have  abandoned.  I  wish  to  see  for  myself  the 
difficulties  you  have  so  painstakingly  described." 

Ford  shrugged. 

"I'm  quite  at  your  service,  of  course.  But  you  will 
find  it  a  hard  trip.  Indeed,  if  we  drive,  we  shall  have  to 
cross  the  river  and  take  the  other  side.  The  canyon 
on  this  side  is  impassable  in  places  for  a  man  on  foot." 

"I  provided  for  that,"  said  the  president,  letting  his 
ferrety  eyes  rest  for  a  moment  upon  the  reluctant  one. 
"You  will  find  two  buckboards  with  their  drivers  at 
the  MacMorrogh  headquarters.  Be  good  enough  to  or 
der  them  around,  and  well  start  at  once.  No;  no  pro 
tests,  Mr.  Ford.  My  responsibilities  are  not  to  be 
shirked.  Penfield  will  drive  with  me,  and  you  may  take 
Mr.  Frisbie  with  you,  if  you  see  fit.  I  understand  he  is 
implicated  with  you  in  this  matter." 

Ford  bridled  angrily  at  the  word. 

"There  is  no  implication  about  it,  Mr.  Colbrith.  You 
continually  refer  to  it  as  if  it  were  a  crime." 


236  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"Ah !  the  word  is  yours,  Mr.  Ford.  We  shall  see — we 
shall  see.  That  is  all,  for  the  present." 

Ford  was  raging  when  he  found  Frisbie  and  gave  the 
order  for  the  vehicles. 

"He  turned  me  out  of  his  office  state-room  as  if  I  had 
been  a  messenger  boy  or  tramp!  Get  those  teams  out, 
Dick,  and  give  me  a  chance  to  cool  down.  If  my  job  is 
to  last  through  this  day — " 

Frisbie  laughed.  "Go  and  dip  your  head  in  the  Pan 
nikin  while  you  wait.  Or,  better  still,  chew  on  this. 
It's  a  cipher  message  that  Durgin  has  just  been  sending 
for  Penfield  to  Vice-President  North.  Wouldn't  that 
make  you  weep  and  howl  ?" 

Ford  was  still  puzzling  over  the  meaningless  code 
words  when  he  took  his  seat  in  the  second  of  the  two 
buckboards  with  Frisbie.  The  first  assistant  waited  un 
til  the  horses  had  splashed  through  the  shallows  of  the 
river  crossing;  waited  further  until  the  president's  ve 
hicle  had  gained  a  little  start.  Then  he  said:  "Is  it 
possible  that  you  had  Penfield  for  a  spy  on  you  as  long 
as  you  did  without  working  out  his  cipher  code  ?  Good 
Lord!  I  got  that  down  before  I  did  anything  else — 
last  spring  when  you  left  me  to  run  the  Plug  Mountain. 
Here's  what  he  says  to  North" — taking  the  code  mes 
sage  and  translating :  "  'Ford  suspects  something. 
Don't  know  how  much.  He  and  Miss  Adair  are  putting 
their  heads  together.  She  has  authority  of  some  kind 


THE    MORNING   AFTER  237 

from  her  brother.  President  goes  with  Ford  to  examine 
abandoned  route,,  as  arranged.  Will  wire  result  later.' " 
"  'As  arranged/  ';  was  Ford's  wrathful  comment. 
"Apparently,  everything  is  arranged  for  us.  Some  day, 
Dick,  I'll  lose  my  temper,  tie  Penfield  in  a  hard  knot 
and  throw  him  into  the  river !  It's  like  a  chapter  out  of 
Lucretia  Borgia !" 


XIX 

THE  RELUCTANT  WHEELS 

Ii  was  possibly  an  hour  after  Penfield's  cipher  mes 
sage  reached  the  Southwestern  Pacific  headquarters  in 
the  Colorado  capital,  when  a  fair-haired  young  man  in 
London-cut  clothes,  and  with  a  tourist's  quota  of  hand- 
luggage,  crossed  the  Denver  Union  Station  platform 
from  the  Pullman  of  a  belated  Chicago  train. 

Ascertaining  from  a  gateman  that  the  Plug  Mountain 
day  train  had  long  since  gone  on  its  way  up  the  canyon, 
the  young  man  left  his  many  belongings  at  the  check- 
stand  and  had  himself  driven  up-town  to  the  Guaranty 
Building.  It  was  Eckstein  who  took  his  card  in  Mr. 
North's  outer  office.  The  private  secretary  was  dictat 
ing  to  a  stenographer,  and  was  impatient  of  the  inter 
ruption.  But  the  name  on  the  card  wrought  a  miracle. 

"Mr.  North?  Why,  surely,  Mr.  Adair.  He  is  always 
at  liberty  for  you.  Eight  through  this  way" — holding 
the  gate  in  the  counter  railing  at  its  widest — "we're 
mighty  glad  to  see  you  in  Denver,  always." 

238 


THE    RELUCTANT    WHEELS  239 

Adair  had  acquired  the  monocle  habit  on  his  latest 
run  across  the  Atlantic,  and  to  keep  in  practice  he  gave 
the  secretary  the  coldest  of  stares  through  the  discon 
certing  glass.  "Really!  I'm  quite  delighted.  Who  is 
the  other  member  of  the  'we/  Mr. — er — er — " 

"Eckstein/'  prompted  the  secretary;  but  he  said  no 
more,  being  prudently  anxious  to  be  quit  of  the  trans 
fixing  stare  before  a  worse  thing  should  befall. 

In  the  inner  room  the  vice-president  was  less  effusive, 
but  no  less  cordial.  It  was  a  rare  thing  to  see  one  of  the 
company's  directors  in  the  Denver  business  offices.  Mr. 
North  was  of  the  opinion  that  it  would  be  a  good  in 
vestment  of  time  and  effort  for  all  concerned  if  the 
members  of  the  board  used  their  privilege  oftener.  So 
on  through  half  a  dozen  polite  time-killers  to  the  re 
luctant  query:  What  could  the  general  manager  do  for 
Mr.  Adair? 

Given  leave  to  speak,  Adair  stated  his  needs  suc 
cinctly.  He  wanted  a  special  train  to  Saint's  Rest;  he 
wanted  it  suddenly,  and  he  asked  that  it  be  given  the 
right  of  the  road. 

"My  dear  sir!"  protested  the  vice-president,  "you 
mustn't  ask  impossibilities!  You  shall  have  the  train 
at  once,  of  course:  you  shall  have  my  private  car.  But 
when  it  comes  to  the  right  of  way,  you'll  have  to  appeal 
to  Mr.  Ford.  Why,  he  doesn't  scruple  to  lay  out  the 
United  States  mails  for  his  material  trains !" 


240  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"Urn,"  said  Adair.   "Where  can  I  reach  Ford?" 

Mr.  North  did  not  equivocate ;  he  never  lied  when  the 
truth  would  answer  the  purpose  equally  well. 

"He  is  out  on  the  extension;  or  more  correctly  speak 
ing,  somewhere  beyond  the  present  end  of  the  construc 
tion  telegraph  line.  I'm  afraid  you  couldn't  reach  him 
by  wire." 

"And  the  president  ?"  queried  the  visitor. 

"Mr.  Colbrith's  car  is  at  the  end-of-track.  You  wished 
to  join  the  party  in  the  Nadia  ?" 

"That  is  what  I  had  in  mind/'  said  Adair,  not  too 
anxiously. 

Mr.  North  shook  his  head. 

"I  don't  think  you'd  enjoy  the  run  over  the  construc 
tion  track.  Mr.  Colbrith  went  over  it  last  night  because 
—well,  because  he  believes  it  to  be  a  presidential  duty 
to  inspect  everything.  If  you  leave  to-day,  you  will 
probably  meet  the  Nadia  coming  out — possibly  at  Saint's 
Rest." 

Adair  suddenly  became  wary. 

"Perhaps  that  would  be  the  easy  thing  to  do,"  he  said. 
"I  suppose  the  engineers  at  Saint's  Rest  could  put  me  up 
if  I  have  to  stay  over  night  ?" 

"You  needn't  ask  them.  You  will  have  my  car — with 
the  best  cook  this  side  of  Louisiana.  Keep  it,  live  in  it, 
till  Mr.  Colbrith  picks  you  up  on  his  return." 

"All  right.    But  you'll  give  me  the  special.    And  let 


THE   RELUCTANT    WHEELS 


it  make  as  good  time  as  it  can,  Mr.  North.;  I'm  fierce 
when  I  have  to  ride  a  slow  train." 

The  vice-president's  promise  was  freely  given;  and  to 
expedite  matters,  the  division  superintendent's  chief 
clerk  went  down  to  the  station  with  Adair  to  see  the 
special  train  properly  equipped  and  started  on  the  moun 
tain-climbing  run.  Adair  left  the  details  to  this  orderly 
from  the  general  offices;  not  knowing  how  to  compass 
them  himself,  he  had  to.  If  he  could  have  seen  the 
broad  grins  on  the  faces  of  his  train  crew  when  Dobson, 
the  clerk,  gave  them  the  despatched  order  —  but  at  that 
moment  he  was  lounging  in  Mr.  North's  easiest  chair 
in  the  central  compartment  of  the  "01,"  reading  for  the 
twentieth  time  a  crease-worn  telegram. 

The  telegram  was  from  Alicia,  and  it  was  dated  at 
Denver,  three  days  gone.  It  was  not  very  explicit;  on 
the  contrary,  it  was  rather  incoherent. 

"You  would  better  come  on  as  fast  as  you  can  if  you  want 
to  save  your  friend's  life.  He  has  been  tried  and  found 
guilty  —  of  just  what,  I  don't  know  —  and  will  be  hanged 
pretty  soon  —  within  a  few  days,  I  think." 

"Now  that's  a  nice  way  to  stir  a  fellow  up,  isn't  it?" 
soliloquized  the  pleasure-lover.  "Just  as  I  was  getting 
ready  to  go  up  to  Mount  Ptarmigan  for  the  shooting. 
She  knew  that,  too.  I'll  bet  a  picayune  it's  just  a  girl's 
scare.  Ford's  plenty  good  and  able  to  take  care  of  him 
self." 


242  EMPIEE   BUILDEES 

That  was  Mr.  Charles  Edward  Adair's  care-free 
phrasing  of  it;  but  three  hours  later,  when  the  cook  of 
the  "01"  served  him  the  most  appetizing  of  luncheons  in 
the  big  open  compartment,,  and  the  steeply  pitched  walls 
of  the  lower  Blue  Canyon  were  still  stinting  the  outlook 
from  the  car  windows,  he  began  to  grow  impatient. 

"Whereabouts  are  we  now,  Johnson  ?"  he  asked  of  the 
cook's  second  man. 

"Between  Cutcliff  and  No-Horse;  yes,  sah.  'Bout 
forty  mile  from  Denver." 

"Great  Scott !  Fifteen  miles  an  hour  ?  Say,  Johnson, 
what  do  you  do  when  you  want  'em  to  run  faster — pull 
this  string?" 

"Yes,  sah ;  dat's  it,"  grinned  the  negro. 

Adair  pulled  the  air-cord,  and  it  brought  results — of 
a  kind.  Only  the  train  came  to  a  sudden  stop,  instead  of 
going  ahead  faster;  and  Conductor  Barclay,  who  had 
been  riding  on  the  engine,  came  back  to  see  what  had 
happened. 

"Did  you  stop  us,  Mr.  Adair  ?"  he  asked  pleasantly. 

"Not  meaning  to,  you  may  be  sure,"  said  Adair.  "But 
now  you're  here,  I'll  ask  if  there  is  any  objection  to  my 
getting  off  and  walking.  I  could  stop  and  rest  and  let 
you  overtake  me  now  and  then,  you  know." 

The  conductor  tweaked  the  air-cord  and  the  train 
moved  on  again. 

"I've  been  expecting  you'd  shout  at  us,"  he  said  good- 


THE    RELUCTANT    WHEELS  243 

naturedly.  "But  we're  doing  the  best  we  can.  There's  a 
freight  wreck  on  ahead,  and  we've  been  dallying  along, 
hoping  they'd  get  it  picked  up  by  the  time  we  reach  it. 
I  thought  you'd  rather  keep  moving  than  to  be  hung  up 
for  three  or  four  hours  at  the  wreck." 

Adair  saw  his  helplessness  and  made  the  best  of  it. 
He  was  in  Mr.  North's  hands,  and  if  Mr.  North  was 
playing  for  delay,  the  delay  would  be  forthcoming.  None 
the  less,  he  contrived  to  make  Barclay  uncomfortable. 

"I'm  only  a  director  in  the  Pacific  Southwestern,  and 
I  suppose  directors  don't  count,"  he  said  nonchalantly. 
"Yet,  I  presume,  if  I  should  ask  it  as  a  personal  favor, 
I  might  get  a  conductor's  or  an  engineer's  head  to  take 
home  with  me  for  a  souvenir.  How  would  that  be  ?  Do 
you  think  I  could  make  it  win  ?" 

"You  could  do  it,  hands  down,  Mr.  Adair.  But  I  hope 
you  won't  feel  as  if  you'd  got  to  go  into  the  head-hunting 
business.  It's  like  the  boy  throwing  stones  into  the 
pond ;  it's  fun  for  the  kid,  but  sort  o'  hard  on  the  toad- 
frogs." 

Adair  laughed.  He  was  not  one  of  those  who  find  it 
easy  to  bear  malice. 

"You  don't  talk  half  as  bad  as  you  act,"  he  said  genial 
ly.  "Down  at  bottom  I  dare  say  you're  a  pretty  good  kind 
of  a  fellow.  Had  anything  to  eat  ?" 

Barclay  shook  his  head.  "No ;  we  was  laying  off  to  get 
coffee  and  sinkers  at  Clapp's  Mine,  if  we  ever  get  there." 


24:4:  EMPIRE   BUILDEES 

"'Coffee  and  sinkers'/'  said  Adair.  "That  doesn't 
sound  very  uplifting.  Sit  down  here  and  help  me  out 
with  my  contract." 

Barclay  did  it,  rather  unwillingly.  He  was  not  ac 
customed  to  eating  at  the  vice-president's  table,  but  there 
was  no  resisting  the  curly-headed  young  man  when  he 
chose  to  make  himself  companionable.  Barclay  sat  on 
the  edge  of  his  chair,  ate  with  his  knife  or  fork  indiffer 
ently,  and  had  small  use  for  the  extra  spoons  and  cutlery. 
But  he  made  a  meal  to  be  remembered.  Afterward,  the 
young  man  found  a  cigar-case,  and  his  own  box  of  Turk 
ish  cigarettes ;  and  still  the  special  was  going  at  the  same 
slow  cow-gallop  up  the  canyon. 

"How  many  are  there  of  you  up  ahead  ?"  asked  Adair, 
when  Barclay's  cigar  was  going  like  a  factory  chimney. 

"Only  Williams  and  his  fireman." 

"Dinner-buckets?" 

"No;  neither  one  of  'em,  as  it  happens.  Hurry  call 
to  go  out  with  you,  and  both  of  'em  live  too  far  to  go 
home  after  the  grub-cans." 

"Johnson,"  said  the  dispenser  of  hospitality,  calling 
the  second  man.  "Think  you  could  climb  over  the  coal 
with  some  dinner  for  the  enginemen?  No?  Let  me 
make  it  possible" — flipping  a  dollar  into  the  ready  palm. 
"Tell  the  cook  it's  an  order,  and  if  he  stints  it  there'll  be 
consequences." 

Barclay  grinned  his  appreciation.    The  curly-headed 


THE    RELUCTANT    WHEELS  245 

young  man  was  far  enough  removed  from  any  species  of 
railway  official  hitherto  known  to  the  conductor.  But 
Adair  was  only  paving  the  way. 

"Do  you  know/'  he  said,  after  a  little  interval  of  to 
bacco-charmed  silence,  "one  of  the  things  I  am  most 
anxious  to  see  is  a  real  railroad  wreck.  Suppose  you 
quicken  up  a  little  and  let  us  have  our  dead  time  at  the 
scene  of  this  disaster  you  speak  of." 

Barclay  was  tilting  uneasily  in  his  chair. 

"I  reckon  they've  about  got  it  picked  up  and  cleaned 
out  o'  the  way  by  this  time,  Mr.  Adair.  I  shouldn't  be 
surprised  if  we  could  hardly  find  the  place  when  we  get 
there." 

"Nor  I,"  said  Adair;  and  he  sat  back  and  chuckled. 
"It's  considerably  difficult  to  sit  up  and  pull  your  im 
agination  on  a  man  who  has  been  decently  good  to  you, 
isn't  it,  Barclay  ?  Let  me  ask  you :  are  you  Mr.  North's 
man?" 

"Mr.  North  is  the  big  boss." 

"But  this  Plug  Mountain  division  is  a  part  of  Mr. 
Ford's  line,  isn't  it?" 

"It  used  to  be  all  his.  There's  a  white  man  for  you, 
Mr.  Adair." 

Adair  saw  his  opportunity  and  used  it. 

"Now  see  here,  Barclay;  I'm  only  a  director,  and  I 
don't  cut  much  ice  out  this  way.  But  back  in  New  York 
I'm  one  of  three  or  four  people  who  can  tell  Mr.  North 


246  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

what  he  can  do,  and  what  he  can't.  You  wouldn't  want 
to  see  Mr.  Ford  getting  it  in  the  neck,  would  you  ?" 

"By  Jacks!  There  ain't  a  man  in  the  service  that 
wouldn't  fight  for  him.  I  tell  you,  he's  white" 

"Well,  Mr.  Ford  is  in  trouble :  I  don't  know  but  he  is 
likely  to  lose  his  job,  if  I  don't  see  the  president  before 
the  big  ax  comes  down.  That  is  between  us  two." 

The  conductor  sprang  out  of  his  chair. 

"By  gravy!  Why  didn't  you  say  that  at  first?  Say, 
Mr.  Adair,  you  stand  between  us  and  Mr.  North— tell 
him  you  gave  the  orders  yourself— and  you'll  have  the 
ride  of  your  life  from  here  to  Saint's  Rest  I" 

"Go  it,"  said  Adair;  and  two  minutes  after  Barclay 
had  let  himself  out  of  the  forward  door  of  the  "01,"  the 
train  took  a  sudden  start  and  darted  ahead  at  full  speed. 

This  bit  of  diplomacy  on  the  part  of  Adair  saved  two 
full  hours  in  the  run  to  Saint's  Rest.  Nevertheless,  it 
was  after  dark  when  the  "01"  pulled  into  the  crowded 
material  yard  in  the  high  mountain  basin  and  Leckhard 
came  aboard  to  find  out  what  had  brought  this  second 
private-car  visitation.  He  was  relieved  not  to  meet 
North — to  be  confronted  only  by  a  pleasant-faced  young 
man  who  seemed  to  have  the  car  all  to  himself. 

"My  name  is  Leckhard/'  announced  the  man-of-all- 
work,  "and  I  represent  the  engineering  department.  I 
Baw  it  was  Mr.  North's  car,  and — " 

"And  you  came  to  see  what  you  could  do  for  the 


THE   EELUCTANT    WHEELS  2-1-7 

vice-president  and  general  manager/'  Adair  finished  for 
him.  "Mighty  sorry  to  disappoint  you,  Mr.  Leckhard, 
but  my  name  isn't  North ;  it's  Adair,  and  I'm  only  a  di 
rector.  How  much  authority  is  a  director  allowed — at 
this  altitude  and  distance  from  New  York?" 

Leckhard  laughed. 

"I  reckon  you  might  call  yourself  the  ranking  officer 
in  the  field,  Mr.  Adair.  What  you  say,  goes." 

"Then  I  say  'go' ;  which  means  that  I'd  like  to  go — on 
to  the  end  of  the  extension." 

But  now  the  engineer  was  shaking  his  head. 

"Ask  me  anything  but  that,  Mr.  Adair.  None  of  our 
enginemen  is  at  this  end  of  the  line,  and  your  man 
Williams,  who  brought  you  up  from  Denver,  doesn't 
know  the  way.  More  than  that,  if  we  had  a  man  and  an 
engine,  I'd  be  afraid  to  send  you  out  for  a  night  run. 
Mr.  Ford  made  it  last  night  with  Mr.  Colbrith's  car, 
and  they  used  up  ten  hours  in  covering  less  than  a  hun 
dred  and  twenty  miles,  and  came  within  six  feet  of  kill 
ing  everybody." 

Adair  had  lighted  a  cigarette,  and  he  did  not  reply  un 
til  the  match  flare  had  gone  out.  Then  he  said,  in  a  way 
that  made  Leckhard  his  friend  for  life : 

"I'm  entirely  in  your  hands,  Mr.  Leckhard ;  can't  turn 
a  wheel  unless  you  say  so.  And  I  believe  you're  telling 
me  the  truth,  as  man  to  man.  Can  you  reach  Ford  or 
Mr.  Colbrithbywire?" 


248  EMPIEE   BUILDERS 

"I'm  sorry  to  say  I  can't.  We  have  only  the  one  wire, 
and  it's  on  temporary  poles  most  of  the  way.  It  broke 
down  on  us  this  morning,  and  I  can't  raise  the  end-of- 
track." 

"Block  number  two,"  said  Adair  cheerfully.  "We 
seem  to  be  out  of  luck  this  evening."  Then,  with  search 
ing  abruptness :  "Do  you  call  yourself  Ford's  friend,  Mr. 
Leckhard?" 

"Rather,"  said  the  Saint's  Rest  Pooh  Bah.  "He  hired 
me ;  and  when  he  goes,  I  go." 

"Ah !  now  we  are  warming  ourselves  at  the  same  fire. 
Let  me  invite  your  confidence  in  one  word,  Mr.  Leck 
hard.  I  dislike  Mr.  North." 

The  burly  engineer  laughed  again. 

"You  have  a  geniusful  way  of  putting  your  finger  on 
the  sore  spot  without  fumbling.  We  all  dislike  Mr. 
North  at  this  end  of  things — with  reason." 

"And  that  reason  is  ?" 

"That  he'd  fire  the  entire  engineering  department  if 
he  could  find  half  an  excuse.  I'm  afraid  he's  going  to 
do  it,  too,  in  the  most  effectual  way — by  forcing  Mr. 
Ford  out.  If  Ford  goes,  every  man  in  the  department 
will  quit  with  him.  I'm  afraid  it's  coming  to  that." 

Johnson,  the  porter,  had  lighted  the  Pintsch  globes 
and  was  laying  the  covers  for  dinner. 

"Make  it  two,  Johnson,"  said  Adair;  and  then  to 
Leckhard :  "You  dine  with  me — don't  say  no ;  I  couldn't 


THE    RELUCTANT    WHEELS  249 

stand  it  alone."  And  when  that  point  was  settled :  "Now 
sit  down  till  we  thresh  this  out  a  bit  finer.  How  far  has 
this  forcing  business  gone  ?  You're  talking  to  the  man 
who  has  backed  Ford  from  the  first." 

"It  has  gone  pretty  far.  North  has  obstructed,  quietly 
but  persistently,  ever  since  the  first  blow  was  struck  on 
the  extension.  He  has  delayed  material,  when  he  could 
do  it  unofficially,  he  scants  us  for  rolling  stock  and  mo 
tive  power,  he  stands  in  with  the  MacMorroghs  and  backs 
them  against  Ford  every  time  there  is  a  dispute.  Ford 
is  a  patient  man,  Mr.  Adair,  but  I  think  he  has  about 
reached  the  limit." 

"H'm.  Do  you  attach  any  particular  importance  to 
the  president's  trip  over  the  extension  ?" 

Leckhard  shook  his  head.  "I'm  only  a  passenger — I 
see  what  goes  by  the  car-windows.  Mr.  Colbrith  was 
dead  set  on  pushing  over  to  the  end-of-track — wouldn't 
even  wait  for  daylight.  You  probably  know  him  better 
than  I  do—" 

"He  is  my  uncle,"  Adair  cut  in. 

"Oh;  then  I  can't  tell  you  anything  about  him.  He 
was  hot  at  Ford  last  night ;  what  for  I  don't  know,  unless 
it  was  because  Ford  opposed  a  night  run  over  a  raw  con 
struction  track  with  the  Nadia.  He  was  right  about 
that,  though.  If  I  had  been  in  his  place  I  would  have 
thrown  up  my  job  before  I  would  have  taken  the  risk." 

Adair   appeared  to  be  considering   something,   and 


250  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

when  he  had  thought  it  out,  the  porter  had  announced 
dinner  and  they  had  taken  their  places  at  the  table. 

"I  have  told  you  I  am  Ford's  friend,  Mr.  Leckhard ;  I 
have  ridden  a  couple  of  thousand  miles  out  of  my  way  to 
give  him  a  lift.  Tell  me  frankly;  have  you  any  reason 
to  believe  it  will  come  to  blows  between  him  and  the 
president  while  they  are  together  at  the  front  ? — Try  this 
celery ;  it's  as  good  as  you'd  get  at  Sherry's." 

Leckhard  helped  himself  to  the  relish,  and  waited  un 
til  the  negro,  Johnson,  had  gone  back  to  the  cook's  gal 
ley. 

"The  little  I  know  comes  in  a  roundabout  way,"  he  re 
plied  slowly.  "Penfield,  who  is  known  all  over  the 
Southwestern  as  Mr.  North's  private  detective  ,and  spy, 
is  with  Mr.  Colbrith  acting  as  the  president's  secretary. 
Yesterday,  while  the  Nadia  was  side-tracked  here,  Pen- 
field  had  a  lot  of  telegraphing  to  do  for  Mr.  Colbrith. 
He  did  it  himself — he's  a  lightning  operator,  among 
other  things — and  I  happened  into  the  office  just  as  he 
was  finishing.  His  final  message  was  a  cipher,  to  Mr. 
North,  and  he  signed  it  with  his  own  name/' 

"Well?"  said  Adair. 

Again  the  engineer  waited  until  the  negro  was  out  of 
hearing. 

"A  little  later,  just  as  the  ISTadia  was  about  to  pull  out, 
there  came  a  rush  call  from  Denver  for  Penfield.  I  an 
swered  and  said  the  car  was  on  the  point  of  leaving,  but 


THE    RELUCTANT   WHEELS  251 

that  I'd  take  the  message  and  try  to  catch  Penfield  if  I 
could.  It  came,  on  the  run,  and  it  was  signed  by  Eck 
stein,  North's  chief  clerk.  It  wasn't  ciphered — lack  of 
time,  I  reckon — and  Eckstein  took  the  chance  that  I 
wouldn't  catch  on." 

"You.  kept  a  copy  ?"  suggested  Adair. 

"I  did.  I  wasn't  able  to  deliver  the  original  until  the 
Nadia  came  back  from  the  foot  of  the  pass  in  the  even 
ing  to  fill  the  engine  tank.  But  I  couldn't  make  any 
thing  out  of  it.  It  was  an  order  to  Penfield  not  to  let 
anything  interfere  with  the  president's  buckboard  trip 
— whatever  that  might  be — with  authority  to  incur  any 
expense  that  might  be  necessary,  using  the  telegram  as 
his  credential  with  the  MacMorrogh  Brothers  if  more 
money  were  needed." 

"To  pay  for  the  buckboards?"  asked  Adair. 

"You  may  search  me,"  said  Leckhard.  "Only  it  could 
hardly  be  that — we  have  an  open  account  at  the  Bank  of 
Copah  for  legitimate  expenses.  No ;  there's  a  nigger  in 
the  woodpile,  somewhere.  Penfield  is  only  a  clerk ;  but 
for  some  purpose  he  is  given  carte  blanche  to  spend 
money." 

Adair  was  absently  stirring  his  black  coffee. 

"All  of  which  points  to  one  conclusion,  Mr.  Leckhard. 
They  are  plotting  against  Ford — without  the  president's 
connivance.  But  the  president  is  going  to  be  made  to 
swing  the  club.  I  know  rather  more  than  you  do  about 


252  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

it — which  isn't  saying  very  much.  My — a  relative  of 
mine  who  is  with  the  party  in  the  Nadia  wired  me  three 
days  ago  from  Denver  that  Ford  had  been  tried  and 
condemned,  and  was  only  waiting  to  be  hanged.  That's 
why  I  am  here  to-night.  You've  got  to  get  me  to  the 
end-of-track  before  it  comes  to  blows  between  Mr.  Col- 
brith  and  Stuart  Ford.  I  know  both  men,  Mr.  Leckhard. 
If  the  iron  comes  to  a  certain  heat,  the  past  master  of  all 
the  peacemakers  won't  be  able  to  patch  things  together." 

"Ford  will  resign,"  said  the  engineer. 

"That  is  what  I'm  afraid  of;  and  we  can't  let  him 
resign.  That  would  mean  Mr.  North  for  everything  in 
sight,  and  the  ultimate  ruin  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  can't  have  Ford  fighting  the  family 
— or  my  uncle — which  is  just  what  he  will  do  if  he  gets 
his  blood  up — and  doesn't  quit  in  a  huff.  It's  up  to  you 
to  trundle  this  car  over  to  the  seat  of  war,  Mr.  Leck 
hard." 

The  division  engineer  was  thinking  hard. 

"I  can't  see  how  it's  to  be  done,  right  now,  Mr.  Adair. 
But  I'll  tell  you  what  I  will  do.  Our  empty  material 
trains  come  back  from  the  front  in  the  night,  as  a  rule. 
When  they  get  in,  and  I  can  be  sure  that  the  track's  clear, 
I'll  double  one  of  the  construction  engines  out  with  you. 
It  will  be  along  toward  morning,  I'm  afraid ;  but,  with 
nothing  in  the  way,  you  ought  to  make  the  run  in  four 
or  five  hours — say  by  late  breakfast  time." 


THE   EELUCTANT   WHEELS  253 

That  was  the  way  it  was  left  when  Leckhard  went  back 
to  his  telegraph  den  at  ten  o'clock;  and  some  six  hours 
later,  Adair,  sleepily  conscious  of  disturbances,  wakened 
sufficiently  to  hear  the  wheels  once  more  trundling  mo 
notonously  under  the  "Ol.3* 


XX 


THE   CONSPIRATORS 

"How  far  do  we  go,  and  what  do  we  do  when  we  get 
there  ?"  asked  Frisbie  of  his  chief,  when  the  two  buck- 
boards,  heaving  and  lurching  over  the  rock-strewn  talus 
at  the  foot  of  the  canyon  cliff,  had  passed  beyond  sight 
and  sound  of  the  headquarters  camp  at  the  mouth  of 
Horse  Creek. 

"I'm  not  guessing  any  more,"  said  Ford  crustily.  He 
was  finding  that  his  temper  deteriorated  as  the  square 
of  his  distance  from  Alicia  Adair  increased.  "The  pres 
ident  said  he  wanted  to  drive  over  this  short-cut,  and 
he's  doing  it." 

"Humph!"  growled  Frisbie.  "If  he  wanted  to  rub 
salt  into  your  bruises,  why  didn't  he  take  you  in  the  cart 
with  him  ?  And  where  do  I  come  in  ?" 

"You  are  'implicated'  with  me;  that  was  his  word/' 

Another  mile  passed  in  discomforting  plungings. 
The  trail  had  become  all  but  impassable  for  the  stagger 
ing  horses ;  yet  the  leading  buckboard  held  on  doggedly. 

254 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  255 

There  were  places  where  both  drivers  had  to  get  out 
and  lead ;  bad  bits  where  all  save  the  president  descend 
ed  to  walk.  But  through  the  worst  as  well  as  the  best, 
Mr.  Colbrith  clung  to  his  seat  like  a  man  determined 
to  ride.  It  was  well  past  noon  when  the  two  vehicles 
reached  the  western  portal  of  the  canyon,  and  the  dot- 
tings  of  the  Copah  mine  workings  came  in  sight  on  the 
hillsides  to  the  southward.  Ford's  driver  had  fallen  a 
little  behind  in  the  final  half-mile,  and  when  the  gap 
was  closed  up,  the  president  was  waiting. 

"Well,  Mr.  Ford,"  he  began,  somewhat  breathless  but 
triumphant,  "are  you  fully  satisfied?" 

"I  have  learned  nothing  that  I  did  not  know  before 
we  began  to  build  the  extension,"  was  the  non-committal 
rejoinder. 

"Oh,  you  haven't?  You  reported  that  canyon  im 
practicable  for  a  railroad,  and  yet  I  have  just  driven 
through  it  without  once  dismounting  from  this  buck- 
board.  Moreover,  we  shall  find  in  Copah  to-morrow  a 
re-survey  of  the  line  showing  its  entire  practicability, 
Mr.  Ford — a  report  not  made  by  your  engineers." 

Ford  and  Frisbie  exchanged  swift  glances  of  intelli 
gence.  The  presence  of  the  strange  engineering  party 
in  the  canyon  was  sufficiently  explained.  At  first  sight 
the  president's  expedient  seemed  childishly  puerile  to 
Ford.  Then  suddenly  in  a  flash  of  revealment  he  saw 
beyond  the  puerilities — beyond  the  stubborn  old  man 


256  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

who,  with  all  his  narrow  self-will  and  obstinacy  was' 
merely  playing  the  game  for  others. 

"We  can  discuss  these  matters  later,  if  you  wish,"  he 
said  placably.  "I  think  you  will  find  our  ground  well 
taken.  Do  you  want  to  drive  back  as  we  came?  Or  will 
you  let  me  find  you  an  easier  road  to  the  mouth  of 
Horse  Creek?" 

But  Mr.  Colbrith  was  not  to  be  balked  or  turned 
aside. 

"Mr.  Ford,  I  wish  to  be  fair  and  impartial.  I  desired 
to  satisfy  myself,  personally,  that  this  route  we  have 
driven  over  is  practicable,  and  it  was  also  my  desire 
that  the  investigation  should  be  conducted  in  your 
presence.  You  will  admit  now  that  you  made  a  mistake 
— a  very  costly  mistake  for  the  company — in  abandon 
ing  this  short  cut/' 

"I  admit  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  difficulties  remain 
as  they  were,  quite  unchanged  by  our  pleasure  trip 
from  the  end-of-track,  Mr.  Colbrith.  Assuming  that 
the  re-survey  will  report  that  the  north  bank  of  the  river 
is  practicable,  while  the  south  bank  is  not,  I  have  only 
to  say  that  the  cost  of  the  two  bridges  would  offset  the 
easier  grading  conditions,  while  the  danger  to  future 
traffic  would  remain  the  same.  But  that  is  neither  here 
nor  there.  You  must  either  give  us  credit  for  knowing 
our  business,  or  you  must  discredit  us  entirely." 

Frisbie  was  grinding  his  heel  into  the  hard  soil  of 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  25? 

the  mesa.  The  argument  was  growing  rather  acrid; 
and  Penfield  and  the  two  drivers  were  interested  listen 
ers.  It  was  high  time  for  a  diversion  to  be  made,  and 
the  assistant  made  it. 

"We  have  used  five  hours  getting  down  here,  and 
we'll  need  as  many  going  back/'  he  put  in.  "Unless 
there  is  something  more  to  be  done  on  the  spot,  I  think 
we'd  better  take  the  road  over  the  hills.  It's  with  you, 
Mr.  Colbrith." 

The  president  signified  his  assent  by  climbing  into 
his  buckboard,  and  the  return  journey  was  begun  with 
the  two  engineers  in  the  lead  for  pathfinding  purposes. 
Once  safely  out  of  earshot,  Frisbie  voiced  his  disgust. 

"A  wild  goose-chase,  pure  and  simple !  Stuart,  that 
old  man  is  in  his  second  childhood." 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Ford.  "He  is  merely  following  out 
North's  suggestions.  Dick,  my  name  is  Dennis." 

"Nonsense!  Things  are  no  worse  than  they  have 
been  all  along." 

"My  time  with  the  Pacific  Southwestern  is  shorter 
by  just  the  number  of  hours  it  has  taken  us  to  drive 
down  here.  Mr.  Colbrith  has  convinced  himself  that  I 
was  wrong  in  abandoning  the  canyon.  To-morrow  he 
will  convince  himself  that  I  was  doubly  wrong  in  ap 
proving  the  detour.  I  shall  hand  in  my  resignation  to 
night." 

"So  be  it,"  said  Frisbie  shortly.   "That  means  good- 


258  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

by  to  the  extension.  I'm  predicting  that  it  will  never 
get  to  Green  Butte — never  get  beyond  Copah.  And 
your  name  will  go  out  to  the  railroad  world  as  that  of 
a  man  who  bit  off  a  number  of  large  things  that  he 
couldn't  chew." 

"Confound  you!"  said  Ford;  and  after  that,  Frisbie 
could  get  no  more  than  single-syllabled  replies  to  his 
monologue  of  Job's  comfortings. 

The  returning  route  was  a  detour,  winding,  through 
the  greater  part  of  it,  among  and  over  the  swelling 
heights  north  of  the  Pannikin.  On  each  hilltop  the  vast 
sweep  of  the  inter-mountain  wilderness  came  into  view, 
and  from  the  highest  point  in  the  trail,  reached  when 
the  sun  was  dipping  toward  the  western  horizon,  the  eye- 
sweep  took  in  the  broken  country  lying  between  the 
Pannikin  and  the  path  of  the  Transcontinental  narrow 
gauge  forty  miles  away. 

Jack's  Canyon,  the  Transcontinental  station  nearest 
Copah,  was  the  beginning  of  a  combined  pack  trail  and 
stage  road  connecting  the  Copah  district  with  what 
had  been,  before  the  advent  of  the  Southwestern  Ex 
tension,  its  nearest  railroad  outlet.  Along  this  trail, 
visible  to  the  buckboarders  as  a  black  speck  tittuping 
against  the  reddening  background  of  the  west,  galloped 
a  solitary  horseman,  urging  his  mount  in  a  way  to  make 
Frisbie,  getting  his  glimpse  from  the  hilltop  of  extended 
views,  call  Ford's  attention. 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  259 

"Look  at  that  brute,  pushing  his  horse  like  that  at 
the  end  of  the  day !  He  ought  to  be — " 

But  the  hastening  rider  was  getting  his  deserts,  what 
ever  they  should  be,  as  he  went  along.  For  three  hours, 
with  three  relays  of  fresh  horses  picked  up  at  the  stage 
stations  in  passing,  he  had  been  galloping  southward, 
and  to  whatever  other  urging  he  might  confess  was 
added  the  new  one  of  fear,  the  fear  that  in  the  ap 
proaching  day's-end  he  would  lose  his  way. 

Seen  from  the  nearer  point  of  view,  the  tittuping 
horseman  seemed  curiously  out  of  harmony  with  his  en 
vironment.  Instead  of  the  cow-boy  "shaps,"  or  over 
alls,  he  wore  the  trousers  of  civilization,  which  the  rapid 
flight  had  hitched  half-way  to  his  knees.  In  place  of 
the  open-breasted  shirt  with  the  rolled-up  sleeves  there 
were  tailor-made  upper  clothes,  with  the  collar  and 
cravat  also  of  civilization,  and  the  hat — it  was  perhaps 
fortunate  for  the  rider  that  he  had  not  met  any  true 
denizens  of  the  unfettered  highlands  on  the  lonely  trail 
from  Jack's  Canyon.  His  hat  was  a  Derby  of  the  newest 
shape ;  and  the  cow-men  beyond  the  range  are  impatient 
of  such  head-gear. 

Recognition,  after  one  has  ridden  hard  for  three 
hours  over  a  dusty  road,,  is  not  easy ;  but  there  are  faces 
one  never  forgets,  and  the  features,  dust-grimed  and 
sweat-streaked  though  they  were,  had  still  the  South-of- 
Europe  outline,  the  slightly  aquiline  nose,  and  the  pierc- 


2GO  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

ing  black  eyes  of  Mr.  Julius  Eckstein,  whom  we  saw, 
on  the  morning  of  this  same  road-wearying  day,  welcom 
ing  Adair  over  the  counter  railing  in  the  Denver  of 
fice.  How  does  it  come  that  a  few  short  hours  later 
we  find  him  galloping  tantivy  over  the  dusty  hills,  no 
less  than  two  hundred  miles,  as  the  birds  fly,  from  the 
counter  railing  of  welcomings? 

That  is  the  story  of  another,  and  a  more  successful 
special  train  than  Adair's.  No  sooner  was  the  care-free 
young  director  safely  on  his  way  to  meet  the  delays  so 
painstakingly  prearranged  for  him  than  the  wires  began 
to  buzz  with  a  cipher  message  of  warning  to  Penfield. 
A  precious  half-hour  was  lost  in  ascertaining  that  the 
wire  connection  to  the  end-of-track  was  temporarily 
out  of  commission;  but  during  that  half-hour  Mr. 
North  had  held  his  chin  in  his  hand  to  some  good  pur 
pose. 

With  the  fresh  complications  promised  by  Adair's 
projection  into  the  field,  a  stronger  man  than  Penfield 
should  be  in  command  on  the  firing  line.  The  vice- 
president  decided  swiftly  that  Eckstein  was  the  man; 
but  how  to  get  him  to  the  MacMorrogh  headquarters 
before  Adair  should  arrive? 

It  proved  to  be  simpler  in  the  outcarrying  than  in  the 
planning.  A  special  light  engine  over  the  Transconti 
nental  to  Jack's  Canyon — an  exchange  of  courtesies 
which  even  fighting  railroads  make  in  war  as  well  as 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  261 

in  peace — a  wire  request  on  the  stage  company  for  re 
lays  of  saddle  horses,  and  the  thing  was  done.  And 
Eckstein,  pushing  his  jaded  beast  down  the  final  hill 
in  the  dusk  of  the  evening,  and  welcoming,  as  only  the 
saddle-tormented  can  welcome,  the  lights  of  the  head 
quarters  camp,  confessed  in  cursings  quite  barbaric  in 
their  phrasings  that  he,  too,  was  done. 

The  conference  held  that  night  behind  locked  doors 
in  the  MacMorroghs'  commissary  office  was  a  council  of 
five,  with  Eckstein,  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the  vice-presi 
dent,  in  the  chair.  Penfield  was  present,  with  no  vote, 
and  the  three  MacMorroghs  voted  as  one ;  but  as  to  that, 
there  were  no  divisions.  A  crisis  was  imminent,  and  it 
must  be  met. 

"As  I  have  said,  I  am  here  with  power  to  act,"  said 
Eckstein,  gripping  the  chair  with  wincings  after  the 
day  of  torment.  "The  plan  outlined  at  first  by  Mr. 
North  must  go  through  as  it  was  outlined.  Part  of  it 
has  already  been  carried  out,  you  say:  Ford  and  the 
president  have  been  over  the  short-cut  together.  To 
morrow  the  entire  private-car  party  goes  to  Copah  over 
the  detour.  Are  the  buckboards  here  for  that?" 

"They're  here  wid  the  drivers.  I  saw  to  that  part  of 
it  myself."  It  was  the  youngest  of  the  three  MacMor 
roghs  who  gave  the  assurance. 

"So  far  so  good,"  commented  the  chairman.  "The 
other  thing  we  have  to  provide  for,  or  rather,  to  pre- 


262  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

vent,  is  the  possibility  of  Mr.  Adair's  reaching  here  in 
time  to  join  the  party.  The  last  definite  information 
we  had  of  Mr.  Adair  he  was  crawling  up  Blue  Canyon 
with  a  train  crew  which  was  under  orders  to  give  him 
ample  time  to  study  the  scenery.  He  has  probably 
reached  Saint's  Rest  before  this,  however,  and  once 
there,  Leckhard  will  give  him  anything  in  sight.  The 
question  is,  will  he  attempt  to  run  the  extension  to 
night?" 

The  middle  MacMorrogH  thought  not,  and  his 
younger  brother  agreed  with  him.  But  the  senior  part 
ner  voted  aye,  and  stuck  to  it.  Thereupon  ensued  a 
conflict  of  opinion.  Dan  MacMorrogh  pointed  out  that 
the  construction  motive  power  was  all  at  the  west  end, 
or  in  transit  eastward;  it  would  be  daylight  of  another 
day  before  an  engineer  familiar  with  the  hazards  could 
be  obtained  for  Adair's  special  over  the  construction 
line.  But  Brian  MacMorrogh  argued  with  equal  em 
phasis  that  this  was  a  mere  begging  of  chances.  With 
out  a  telegraph  wire  to  verify  the  guess,  no  man  could 
say  at  what  hour  one  of  the  trains  of  empties  would 
pull  through  to  Saint's  Rest;  and  whatever  the  hour, 
Leckhard  would  doubtless  turn  the  engine  and  crew  to 
double  back  with  Adair's  car. 

Eckstein  was  gripping  the  arms  of  his  chair  and  set 
ting  his  teeth  deep  into  his  cigar  while  the  probabilities 
were  getting  themselves  threshed  out.  At  the  end  of  the 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  263 

dispute  he  said  quietly:  "It's  a  hell  of  a  pity  we  can't 
have  the  use  of  the  wire  for  this  one  night.  But,  gen 
tlemen,  we  can't  stop  for  trifles.  There  are  five  of  us 
here  in  this  room  who  know  how  much  is  at  stake.  One 
of  two  things  is  due  to  happen.  If  we  can  keep  Adair 
out  of  it  for  another  twelve  hours,  Ford  will  be  dis 
graced  and  asked  to  resign.  If  he  gets  to  that  point, 
we're  safe.  I  know  Ford's  temper.  If  Mr.  Colbrith 
puts  it  as  he  is  likely  to  put  it,  Ford  will  say  and  do 
things  that  will  make  it  impossible  for  Adair  or  any 
one  else  to  get  him  back  into  the  service." 

"Thrue  for  you,  Misther  Eckstein ;  ye  have  'im  down 
to  the  crossin'  of  a  't',"  agreed  the  eldest  of  the  brothers 
MacMorrogh. 

"That  is  one  of  the  due  things,"  Eckstein  went  on 
smoothly.  "The  other  isn't  pretty  to  look  at.  If  Adair 
gets  here  in  time,  it  will  be  another  story.  He  can  han 
dle  Ford;  and  he  has  proved  once  or  twice  that  he  can 
handle  Mr.  Colbrith.  If  he  hadn't  been  out  of  the  way 
when  you  went  to  New  York  with  Mr.  North,  you'd 
never  have  seen  the  thin  edge  of  this  contract,  Brian. 
Well,  then  what  happens?  With  Adair  on  the  ground 
to  back  him,  Ford  wins  out.  Do  you  know  what  that 
means?  Investigations,  muck-rakings,  and  worse. 
There  are  two  or  three  of  us  here,  and  some  more  on  the 
other  side  of  the  range,  who  won't  get  off  with  less  than 
ten  years  apiece.  I'm  willing  to  take  the  chance  of  a 


264  EMPIEE   BUILDERS 

few  more  years  for  another  play  on  the  red.  How  is  it 
with  the  rest  of  you  ?" 

The  elder  MacMorrogh  spread  his  hands. 

"It's  all  in  the  same  boat  we  are.  You've  a  notion  in 
the  back  par-rt  of  your  head,  Misther  Eckstein;  lave 
us  have  it." 

"As  I've  said,  we  can't  stick  at  trifles.  If  Adair's 
train  is  on  the  extension,  it  mustn't  get  here.  Somebody 
goes  up  the  line  on  a  hand-car  to-night  and  stops  it." 

"Is  it  to  ditch  it,  ye  mane?"  asked  the  youngest  of 
the  brothers  in  a  hoarse  whisper. 

Eckstein  laughed  cynically.  "What  a  lot  of  crude 
cutthroats  you  are!"  he  jeered.  "Now  if  it  were  Ford, 
instead  of  Adair — but  pshaw!  a  rail  or  two  taken  up 
and  flung  into  the  river  well  beyond  walking  distance 
from  this  camp  does  the  business.  Only  the  man  who 
does  it  wants  to  make  sure  he  has  gone  far  enough  back 
to  cover  all  the  possible  chances." 

"That's  me,"  said  Dan  MacMorrogh ;  and  he  rose  and 
let  himself  out,  with  the  younger  brother  to  lock  the 
door  behind  him. 

The  door-keeping  attended  to,  the  younger  brother 
drew  closer  into  the  circle. 

"There's  wan  thing,"  he  said,  looking  furtively  at 
Eckstein.  "I  was  in  Copah  this  day:  I  got  the  buck- 
boards  for  Misther  Colbrith.  Goin'  past  the  bank,  who 
would  I  see  but  our  old  bookkeeper,  Merriam,  chinnin' 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  265 

wid  the  bank  president.  I  thought  he  was  out  o'  the  way 
entirely." 

Stiff  and  saddle-sore  as  he  was,  Eckstein  leaped  out 
of  his  chair  with  an  oath. 

"Merriam?  What  the  devil  is  he  back  here  for?  It's 
a  put-up  job !" 

It  was  the  chief  of  the  MacMorroghs  who  flung  in  the 
calming  word. 

"'Tis  only  a  happen-so,  Misther  Eckstein.  Merriam 
owns  a  mine  or  two  in  the  Copah,  and  ye  know  the 
fever :  a  man  can't  keep  away  from  thim." 

"That  may  be;  but  it's  a  cursed  unlucky  combina 
tion,  just  the  same.  I  tell  you,  Brian,  he  knows  too 
much — this  fellow  Merriam.  He  knew  what  was  up 
when  he  was  steering  Frisbie.  You  told  him  too  much. 
And  afterward,  when  we  gave  him  the  Oregon  job,  he 
knew  why  he  was  being  bribed  to  go  away.  You  let  us 
in  for  this :  you've  got  to  muzzle  him,  some  way." 

The  MacMorrogh  looked  at  his  remaining  brother 
meaningly.  "'Tis  up  to  you,  this  time,  Mickey,  b'y. 
Find  your  way  over  to  the  minin'  camp  this  night,  and 
make  a  clane  job  av  it/' 

Penfield  was  moving  uneasily  in  his  chair.  The  plot 
ting  waters  were  deepening  swiftly,  much  too  swiftly 
for  him.  Loyalty  to  his  superior  officer,  the  unquestion 
ing  loyalty  that  disregards  motives  entirely  and  does 
not  look  too  closely  at  methods,  was  his  fetish.  But 


266  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

these  men  were  not  merely  loyal  to  Mr.  North.  They 
were  criminals — he  stuck  at  the  word,  but  there  was  no 
other — fighting  for  their  own  hand. 

"I  guess — I  guess  I'd  better  go  back  to  the  Nadia," 
he  stammered,  trying  to  keep  his  voi,  ,e  steady.  "Mr.  Col- 
brith  may  need  me." 

Eckstein  turned  on  him  like  a  snarling  animal. 

"No  you  don't,  Arthur,  my  boy.  I  know  you  like  a 
book.  You  stay  here  till  you're  in  as  deep  as  the  rest 
,  of  us.  Like  Merriam,  you  know  too  damned  much." 

Penfield  sat  still,  with  the  cold  chills  running  up  and 
down  his  spine,  while  Eckstein  went  on  talking  to  the 
two  MacMorroghs. 

"This  Merriam  business  complicates  things  like  hell" 
— he  was  growing  coarsely  profane  in  the  grinding  mill 
of  events.  "But  it  shows  us  where  we  stand.  This  thing 
has  got  to  go  through,  and  if  it  doesn't  work  out  the 
way  we've  planned  it,  it's  for  us  to  find  another  way." 

"There's  always  the  wan  other  way,"  said  the  elder 
MacMorrogh  slowly.  "  'Tis  but  a  drunken  fight  in  wan 
o'  the  camps,  and  Ford  tryin'  to  stop  it,  as  he  always 
does:  a  bit  of  a  shindy  among  the  b'ys,  and  this — " 
crooking  his  forefinger  suggestively. 

"Bah!"  said  Eckstein.  "You  fellows  ought  to  have 
lived  in  the  stone  age,  when  a  man  pulled  his  enemy 
to  pieces  with  his  bare  hands.  If  it  comes  to  that,  there 
are  easier  ways — and  safer.  A  premature  blast  in  a  rock 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  267 

cut;  a  weak  coupling-pin  when  he  happens  to  be  stand 
ing  in  the  way  of  a  pulling  engine:  they  tell  me  he  is 
always  indifferent  to  his  personal  safety.  But  never 
mind  the  fashion  of  it;  the  point  I'm  making  is  that  if 
everything  else  fails,  Ford  mustn't  live  to  be  the  head- 
foreman  of  the  outfit." 

Penfield's  face  was  ashen,  and  he  was  cravenly  thank 
ful  that  the  lamplight  was  dim,  and  that  his  chair  was 
in  the  shadow.  This  was  more  than  he  had  bargained 
for ;  more  by  the  price  of  a  man's  life. 

Eckstein  was  lifting  himself  by  painful  inches  from 
his  chair.  A  silence  as  of  the  grave  had  fallen  upon  the 
two  MacMorroghs.  It  was  the  senior  partner  who 
broke  it. 

"'Tis  as  ye  say,  Misther  Eckstein.  A  man — a  safe 
man,  that'll  do  what  he's  told  to  do — will  be  at  Ford's 
heels  till  this  thing  do  be  settled.  And  now  for  your 
self :  'tis  betther  that  ye  kape  dark.  Four  of  us  know 
that  you're  in  the  camp — no  wan  else  need  know.  Fve 
a  room  and  a  bed,  and  ye'll  be  nadin'  the  lasht,  I'm 
thinking." 

The  two  MacMorroghs  were  bestirring  themselves, 
and  Penfield  was  slipping  through  the  door  into  the 
commissary  when  Eckstein's  fingers  closed  upon  his 
arm. 

"Your  part  is  to  keep  tab  on  the  programme,"  he  whis 
pered.  "Get  word  instantly  to  Brian  if  there  is  any 


268  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

change.  And  if  you  weaken,  Arthur,  I'll  promise  you 
just  one  thing :  I'll  pull  you  in  with  the  rest  of  us  if  I 
have  to  swear  to  a  string  of  lies  a  mile  long.  Remem 
ber  that." 

Penfield  escaped  at  length,  and  stumbled  through  the 
littered  end-of-track  yard  to  where  the  lighted  windows 
of  the  Nadia  marked  the  berth  of  the  president's  car. 
Out  of  the  shadow  of  the  car  a  man  rose  up  and  con 
fronted  him.  It  was  Frisbie,  and  he  asked  a  single  ques 
tion: 

"Say,  Penfield,  who  was  that  fellow  who  rode  around 
to  the  MacMorroghs'  back  door  just  after  dark  ?" 

"It  was  Eckstein."  The  secretary  let  slip  the  name 
before  he  could  lay  hold  of  his  discretion. 

"Oh:  all  right.  That's  all,"  said  the  engineer;  and  he 
vanished. 

Climbing  to  the  observation  platform,  Penfield  let 
himself  into  the  cheerful  central  compartment  of  the 
Nadia  quietly  enough  to  surprise  two  people  who  were 
sitting  together  on  one  of  the  broad  divans.  The  two 
were  Ford  and  Miss  Alicia  Adair,  with  Aunt  Hester 
Adair,  reading  under  the  drop-light  at  the  table,  for  the 
only  other  occupant  of  the  compartment.  It  was  Miss 
Alicia  who  told  the  secretary  that  he  was  not  needed. 

"Mr.  Colbrith  was  very  tired,  and  he  has  gone  to 
bed,"  she  said;  and  Penfield,  still  pallid  and  curiously 
unready  of  speech,  said  he  believed  he'd  go,  too. 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  269 

Ford  got  up  when  Penfield  had  disappeared  in  the 
curtained  vestibule  leading  to  the  state-rooms. 

"I  shall  wait  one  more  day,  because  you  want  me  to," 
he  said,  resuming  the  conversation  which  had  been 
broken  off  by  Penfield's  incoming.  "But  I'll  tell  the 
truth:  I  came  here  to-night  to  have  it  over  with.  We 
were  as  near  quarreling  to-day  as  I  want  to  come,  and  if 
Frisbie  hadn't  got  between — " 

"Good  Mr.  Frisbie  I"  she  said.  "Some  day  I  hope  to 
get  a  chance  to  be  very  nice  to  him." 

Ford  laughed.  The  evening  had  healed  many  of  the 
woundings  of  the  day. 

"If  you  don't  get  the  chance  it  won't  be  Dick's  fault 
— or  mine.  Meantime,  I'll  be  delighted  to  pose  as  his 
substitute." 

She  had  gone  with  him  to  the  door,  and  his  last 
word  was  a  reminder.  "Don't  forget,"  he  said.  "I'm 
to  drive  your  buckboard  to-morrow,  whatever  happens." 

"You  are  the  one  who  will  forget,"  she  retorted. 
"When  Uncle  Sidney  crooks  his  finger  at  you,  you'll 
climb  up  obediently  beside  him  and  let  him  scold  you  all 
the  way  over  to  Copah." 

"Wait  and  see,"  said  Ford;  and  then  he  said  good 
night,  not  as  he  wanted  to,  but  as  he  must,  with  Aunt 
Hester  sitting  within  arm's  reach. 

Frisbie  was  sitting  up  for  him  when  he  reached  the 
white  tents  of  the  engineers'  camp  pitched  a  little  apart 


270  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

from  the  MacMorrogb.  conglomeration  of  shacks  and 
storehouses. 

"Just  one  question,"  said  the  first  assistant,  "and 
I've  been  staying  awake  to  ask  it.  Are  you  still  my 
boss?" 

"For  one  more  day/'  said  Ford  shortly. 

"Well,  we  can't  live  more  than  a  day  at  a  time,  if  we 
try.  That  will  do  to  sleep  on." 

"All  right;  sleep  on  it,  then." 

"In  a  minute;  after  I've  freed  my  mind  of  one  little 
news  item.  Do  you  remember  that  fellow  we  saw  riding 
in  on  the  Jack's  Canyon  trail  as  we  were  coming  back 
this  afternoon?" 

"Yes." 

"Have  you  any  notion  who  it  was?" 

"No." 

"It  was  Mr.  Julius  Eckstein;  and  he  is  at  present 
lying  doggo  in  the  MacMorrogh  quarters.  That's  all. 
Now  you  can  turn  in  and  sleep  a  few  lines  on  that." 


XXI 


THE  MILLS   OF   THE   GODS 

It  was  merely  by  chance  that  Adair  had  Michael 
Gallagher  for  his  engineer  when  the  "01"  was  made  up 
for  the  after-midnight  run  from  Saint's  Eest  to  the 
MacMorrogh  headquarters.  But  it  was  a  chance  which 
was  duly  gratifying  to  Leckhard.  The  little  Irishman 
was  Ford's  most  loyal  liegeman,  and  a  word  was  all  that 
was  needed  to  put  him  on  his  mettle.  The  word  was 
spoken  while  he  was  oiling  around  for  the  man-killing 
extra  service. 

"Pretty  well  knocked  out,  Michael  ?"  asked  Leckhard, 
by  way  of  preface, 

"I  am  thot,  Misther  Leckhard.  Tis  the  good  half  of 
lasht  night,  all  day  yestherday,  and  thin  some." 

"It's  tough.  But  if  any  of  the  other  men  were  in,  I 
should  still  ask  you  to  go.  Mr.  Ford  is  in  a  pinch,  and 
Mr.  Adair,  your  passenger,  is  going  to  help  him  out. 
He  can  do  it  if  you  get  him  to  Horse  Creek  in  time; 
and  I  know  you'll  get  him  there  if  the  956  and  the  '01* 
will  stay  on  the  steel." 

271 


272  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"To  help  Misther  Foord  out?  Thot's  me,"  said  Gal 
lagher  simply. 

"Not  having  a  wire,  I  can't  boost  you  any  from  this 
end.  You'll  meet  Folsom  and  Graham  with  the  other 
two  sections  of  empties  where  you  can:  you'll  run  as 
fast  as  the  Lord'll  let  you  on  such  a  track  as  you  have : 
but  above  all,  you'll  stay  on  the  rails.  If  you  ditch  your 
self,  it'll  go  hard  with  Mr.  Ford." 

"I'll  do  all  thim  things  and  wan  more — and  thot  wan 
is  the  shtiffest  av  thim  all :  the  saints  aidin'  me,  Misther 
Leckhard,  I'll  shtay  awake." 

There  was  a  short  siding  at  the  summit  of  the  pass, 
and  by  good  hap,  Gallagher  met  Folsom  with  the  first 
string  of  empties  at  that  point:  or  rather,  giving  the 
bit  of  good  luck  full  credit,  he  heard  the  roaring  of 
Folsom's  exhaust  as  the  first  of  the  opposing  trains 
pounded  up  the  dangerous  western  grade,  and  hastily 
backed  up  and  took  the  summit  siding. 

Pitching  over  the  hill  with  the  "01"  the  moment 
Folsom's  tail-lights  had  passed  the  outlet  switch,  Gal 
lagher  had  a  sharp  attack  of  memory.  The  day  before, 
in  the  Horse  Creek  yard,  he  had  seen  and  remarked 
a  jagged  scratch  on  the  side  of  the  Nadia.  Hence,  he 
was  watching  for  the  narrow  rock  cuttings,  and  the 
three  passages  perilous  on  the  cliff  face  were  made  in 
safety. 

Once  off  the  mountain,  however,  the  greater  peril 


THE    MILLS    OF   THE    GODS  273 

began  to  assert  itself.  For  a  time  the  Irishman  kept 
himself  fully  awake  and  alert  by  pushing  the  956  to  the 
ragged  edge  of  hazard,  scurrying  over  the  short  tangents 
and  lifting  her  around  the  curves  in  breath-taking 
spurts.  Later  this  expedient  began  to  lose  its  fillip. 
Since  the  train  was  running  wholly  on  the  air-brakes 
there  was  nothing  for  the  fireman  to  do,  and  Jackson, 
the  loyalest  understudy  Gallagher  had  ever  known,  tum 
bled  from  his  box  in  a  doze,  staggered  across  the 
gang-way  into  the  half-filled  tender,  and  fell  like  a  man 
anaesthetized  full  length  on  the  coal.  Gallagher  did  not 
try  to  arouse  him. 

"  'Tis  hell  for  wan,  an'  twice  hell  for  two,"  he  mut 
tered;  and  then  he  shifted  his  right  hand  to  the  brake- 
cock  and  grasped  the  hot  throttle  lever  with  the  ungloved 
left.  And  for  a  time  the  pain  of  the  burn  sufficed. 

It  was  another  piece  of  luck,  good  or  bad,  that  made 
Ten  Mile  station  the  special  train's  meeting  point  with 
the  second  train  of  empties.  This  time  it  was  Graham, 
the  other  engineer,  who  heard.  He  had  stopped  at  Ten 
Mile  on  the  bare  chance  that  the  wire  between  that  point 
and  Saint's  Rest  had  been  repaired;  public  opinion  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding,  an  engineer  does  not  run 
"wild"  when  he  can  help  it. 

The  engineer  of  the  third  section  had  come  out  of  the 
night  operator's  office  disappointed,  and  was  climbing  to 
his  engine  to  pull  out,  when  he  heard,  or  thought  he 


274  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

heard,  the  dull  rumble  of  a  train  racing  down  the  can 
yon.  It  came  in  sight  while  he  listened,  and  the  yellow 
flare  told  him  that  it  was  either  Gallagher  or  Folsom 
doubling  back  on  one  of  the  construction  engines.  What 
startled  him  was  the  fact  that  the  coming  train  appeared 
to  be  running  itself ;  there  was  no  warning  whistle  shriek 
and  no  slackening  of  speed. 

Graham  was  a  Scotchman,  slow  of  speech,  slow  to  an 
ger,  methodical  to  the  thirty-third  degree.  But  in  an 
emergency  his  brain  leveled  itself  like  a  ship's  compass 
gimballed  to  hang  plumb  in  the  suddenest  typhoon. 
Three  shrill  whistle  calls  sent  a  sleepy  flagman  racing 
to  set  the  switch  of  the  siding.  With  a  clang  the  revers 
ing  lever  came  over  and  the  steam  roared  into  the  cylin 
ders. 

The  Scotchman  had  the  grade  to  help  him,  which  was 
fortunate.  When  he  had  the  string  of  empties  fairly 
in  retreat,  the  beam  of  Gallagher's  headlight  was  shin 
ing  full  in  his  face  and  blinding  him.  For  a  heart 
breaking  second  he  feared  that  the  opposing  train 
would  follow  him  in  on  the  siding;  there  was  but  an 
instant  for  the  flicking  of  the  switch.  But  by  this  time 
the  sleepy  flagman  was  wide  awake,  and  he  jerked  the 
switch  lever  for  his  life  the  moment  Graham's  engine 
had  cleared  the  points.  It  was  the  closest  possible  shave. 
Gallagher's  cab  ticked  the  forward  end  of  the  other  en 
gine's  running  board  in  passing,  and  if  Graham  had 


THE   MILLS    OF   THE    GODS  275 

not  been  still  shoving  backward  with  the  throttle  wide 
open,  the  "01,"  being  wider  than  its  piloting  engine, 
would  have  had  its  side  ripped  out. 

Graham  had  a  glimpse  into  the  cab  of  the  956  as  it 
passed  and  saw  Gallagher,  sitting  erect  on  his  box  with 
wide-staring  eyes.  He  knew  the  symptoms,  and  feared 
that  he  had  only  postponed  the  catastrophe.  The  sid 
ing  was  a  short  one,  and  he  knew  that  in  backing  down 
he  must  inevitably  have  shoved  the  rear  end  of  his  train 
out  upon  the  main  line  at  the  lower  switch.  Once  again 
the  level  brain  righted  itself  to  the  emergency.  Four 
sharp  shrieks  of  the  whistle  for  switches,  a  jamming  of 
the  whistle  lever  to  set  the  canyon  echoes  yelling  in  the 
hope  of  arousing  Gallagher,  and  Graham  slammed  his 
engine  into  the  forward  motion  without  pausing  to  close 
the  throttle.  There  was  a  grinding  of  fire  from  the 
wheels,  a  running  jangle  of  slack-taking  down  the  long 
line  of  empties,  and  the  freight  train  shot  ahead, 
snatching  its  rear  end  out  of  harm's  way  just  as  Gal 
lagher,  dreaming  that  his  boiler  had  burst  and  that  all 
the  fiends  of  the  pit  were  screeching  the  news  of  it,  came 
to  life  and  snapped  on  the  air. 

When  the  stop  was  made,  the  little  Irishman  roused 
his  fireman,  go'  off  and  footed  it  up  the  line  to  see  what 
he  had  done.  Graham  had  stopped  his  engine  when  he 
was  sure  his  train  was  clearing  the  lower  switch,  and 
was  on  his  way  back  to  find  out  what  had  happened  to 


276  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

Gallagher.  The  two  men  met  in  the  shadow  of  the 
halted  material  empties,  and  it  was  the  Irishman  who 
began  it. 

"Paste  me  wan,  Scotchie,"  he  said.  "'Tis  owin'  to 
me." 

Without  a  word  the  Scotchman  gave  the  Blow,  catch 
ing  the  little  man  full  in  the  chest  and  knocking  him 
half  a  car-length.  That  was  enough.  Gallagher  picked 
himself  up  out  of  the  gravel,  the  lust  of  battle  hot  upon 
him. 

"Wan  more  like  thot,  ye  divvle,  and  I  can  lick  ye 
if  ye  wor  Fin-mac-Coul  himself,"  he  panted;  and 
Graham  gave  it  judiciously,  this  time  on  the  point  of 
the  jaw.  For  five  bloody  minutes  it  went  on,  give  and 
take,  down  and  up;  methodically  on  Graham's  part, 
fiery  hot  on  Gallagher's.  And  in  the  end  the  Irishman 
had  the  heavier  man  backed  against  the  string  of  emp 
ties  and  yelling  for  quarter. 

"Are  you  full  awake  now,  ye  red-hot  blastoderm?" 
gasped  Graham,  struggling  to  free  himself  when  Galla 
gher  gave  him  leave. 

"I  am  thot,  thanks  to  you,  Sandy,  lad.  'Twas  a  foine 
bit  av  a  scrimmage,  an*  Fm  owin'  ye  wan.  Good  night 
to  ye." 

"Ye've  got  a  clear  track  from  this,"  called  Graham, 
swabbing  his  battered  face  with  a  piece  of  cotton  waste 
drawn  from  one  of  the  pockets  of  method.  "But  ye'd 


THE    MILLS    OF   THE    GODS  277 

better  not  take  any  more  cat-naps.  Go  on  with  ye,  ye 
wild  Irishman ;  ye're  obstructin'  the  traffic." 

For  twenty  miles  below  Ten  Mile  Gallagher  sat  on 
his  box  like  a  man  refreshed.  Then  the  devil  of  sleep 
postponed  beset  him  again.  Once  more  the  fireman  was 
asleep  on  the  coal,  and  to  the  little  Irishman's  bom 
bardment  of  wrenches  and  other  missiles  he  returned 
only  sodden  groans.  Gallagher  nerved  himself  to  fight 
it  through  alone.  Mile  after  mile  of  the  time-killing 
track  swung  slowly  to  the  rear,  and  there  was  not  even 
the  flick  of  speed  to  help  in  the  grim  battle. 

Dawn  came  when  the  end-of -track  camp  was  still 
forty  miles  away,  but  the  breaking  day  brought  no  sur 
cease  of  strugglings.  When  it  came  to  the  bitter  end, 
when  his  eyelids  would  close  involuntarily  and  he  would 
wake  with  a  start  to  wonder  dumbly  how  far  the  956  had 
come  masterless,  Gallagher  took  a  chew  of  tobacco  and 
began  to  rub  the  spittle  into  his  eyes — the  last  resort  of 
the  sleep-tormented  engineman.  Like  all  the  other  expe 
dients  it  sufficed  for  the  time;  but  before  long  he  was 
nodding  again,  and  dreaming  that  a  thousand  devils 
were  burning  his  eyes  out  with  the  points  of  their  red- 
hot  pitchforks. 

Out  of  one  of  these  nightmares  he  came  with  a  yell 
of  pain  to  see  what  figured  for  the  moment  as  another 
nightmare.  Three  hundred  feet  ahead  the  track 
seemed  to  vanish  for  three  or  four  rail-lengths.  It  was 


278.  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

second  nature  to  jam  on  the  brakes  and  to  make  the  sud 
den  stop.  Then  he  sat  still  and  rubbed  his  smarting 
eyes  and  stared  again.  The  curious  hallucination  per 
sisted  strangely.  Fifty  feet  ahead  of  the  stopped  engine 
the  glistening  lines  of  the  steel  ended  abruptly,  begin 
ning  again  a  car-length  or  two  beyond.  Without  disturb 
ing  the  sleeping  Jackson,  Gallagher  got  down  and  crept 
cautiously  out  to  the  break.  It  was  a  break.  He  stooped 
and  felt  the  rail  ends  with  his  hands. 

When  he  straightened  up  his  passenger  was  standing 
beside  him. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Adair.  "Have  we  lost  some 
thing?" 

Gallagher  waved  a  grimy  hand  at  the  gap. 

"The  thrack,"  he  said.  "  'Twas  there  whin  I  pulled 
me  sthring  av  empties  out  over  ut  lasht  night.  'Tis 
gone  now,  else  I'm  thot  near  dead  for  sleep  I  can 
nayther  see  nor  feel  sthraight." 

Adair  was  calmly  lighting  a  cigarette. 

"Your  senses  are  still  in  commission/'  he  said; 
"there  is  a  good-sized  piece  of  track  missing.  Who 
sniped  it,  do  you  suppose?" 

The  engineer  was  shaking  his  fiery  head. 

"  ?Tis  beyond  me,  Misther  Adair." 

"That's  the  deuce  of  it,"  smiled  the  young  man. 
"It's  beyond  the  train.  How  is  your  engine — pretty 
good  on  the  broad  jump  ?" 


THE    MILLS    OF   THE    GODS  279 

Gallagher  was  not  past  laughing. 

"She'll  not  lep  thot,  this  day.  But  who'd  be  doin' 
this  job  betune  dark  an'  mornin',  d'ye  think?" 

"You  will  have  to  ask  me  something  easy,  I'm  not  up 
in  all  the  little  practical  jokes  of  the  country.  But  if 
I  should  venture  a  guess,  I  should  say  it  was  some 
one  who  didn't  want  me  to  answer  the  first  call  for 
breakfast  at  your  end-of-track  camp  this  morning. 
What  do  we  do?" 

Gallagher  was  thinking. 

"We  passed  a  camp  av  surfacers  tin  mile  back,  and 
there'd  be  rails  at  Arroyo  Siding,  tin  mile  back  o'  thot," 
he  said  reflectively. 

Adair  had  passed  over  to  the,  river  side  of  the  line  and 
was  looking  at  a  fresh  plowing  of  the  embankment. 

"The  rails  have  been  dragged  down  here  and  they  are 
probably  in  the  river,"  he  announced.  "If  we  had  men 
and  tools  we  might  fish  them  out  and  repair  damages." 

"Come  on,  thin,"  cried  the  little  Irishman,  and  when 
he  ran  back  to  climb  to  t!io  footboard  of  the  956,  Adair 
climbed  with  him. 

Jackson,  refreshed  by  his  cat-naps  on  the  coal,  was 
sent  to  the  rear  end  of  the  "01"  to  flag  back,  and  in 
due  time  the  special  picked  up  the  gang  of  surfacers 
just  turning  out  to  the  day's  work.  An  Irish  foreman 
was  in  command,  and  to  him  Gallagher  appealed, 
lucidly  but  not  too  gently.  The  reply  was  a  volley  of 


280  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

abuse  and  a  caustic  refusal  to  lend  his  men  to  the  track- 
laying  department. 

Gallagher  turned  to  Adair  with  his  red-apple  face 
wrinkling  dismayfully. 

"'Tis  up  to  me  to  push  thot  felly's  face  in,  Misther 
Adair;  and  what  wid  two  nights  and  a  day,  shtandin', 
and  wan  fight  wid  a  bully  twice  me  size,  I'm  not  man 
enough." 

Adair  tossed  away  the  stump  of  his  cigarette. 

"You're  quite  sure  that  is  what  is  needed?"  he! 
queried. 

"To  knock  a  grain  av  sinse  into  thot  Wicklow  man  ?" 
queried  Gallagher.  "Sure,  it  is."  And  then  whispering : 
"But  not  for  you,  Misther  Adair;  he'd  ate  you  in  two 
bites.  L'ave  me  have  a  thry  wid  him." 

But  Adair  was  off  and  fronting  the  surly  MacMor- 
rogh  foreman. 

"We  need  a  dozen  of  your  men  and  some  tools,"  he 
said  quietly.  "Do  we  get  them?" 

"Not  by  a  fistful!"  retorted  the  surly  one.  "Maybe 

you  think  you're  enough  of  a to  take 

'em." 

"I  am  a  better  man  than  you  are,"  was  the  even- 
toned  rejoinder. 

"Prove  it,  then." 

Gallagher,  leaning  from  his  cab  window,  fully  awake 
now,  and  chuckling  and  rubbing  his  hands  together 


THE    MILLS    OF   THE    GODS  281 

softly,,  saw  the  blow.  It  was  clean-cut,  swift  as  the  light 
ning's  flash,  true  to  a  finger's  breadth,  and  the  sound  of 
it  was  as  bone  upon  bone.  At  its  impact  the  Wicklow 
man  bounded  into  the  air,  arched  his  back  like  a  bow, 
and  pitched  on  his  head  in  the  ditch.  When  he  rose  up, 
roaring  blasphemies  and  doubling  his  huge  fists  for 
the  fray,  the  quiet  voice  was  assailing  him  again.  "Do 
we  get  the  men  and  tools  ?" 


Again  the  lightning-like  passes  of  the  hands,  and  the 
Wicklow  man  sat  down  forcibly  and  gasped.  The 
Italian  surfacers  threw  aside  their  picks  and  shovels 
and  made  a  ring,  dancing  excitedly  and  jeering.  The 
big  foreman,  whose  scepter  of  authority  was  commonly 
a  pick-handle  for  the  belaboring  of  offenders,  was  not 
loved. 

"Kick-a  da  shin  —  kick-a  da  shin  —  he  like-a  da  nig 
ger-mans,"  suggested  one  of  the  Italians,  but  there  was 
no  need.  Being  safely  out  of  range  of  the  catapult  fists, 
the  foreman  stayed  there. 

"Take  your  track  gang  and  be  damned  to  you!"  he 
snarled, 

Adair  made  a  forward  step  and  stood  over  him. 

"Are  you  quite  convinced  that  I  am  the  better  man  ?w 
he  asked  very  gently. 

"It's  a  trick  I"  growled  the  Wicklow  man  savagely.  "I 
could  get  onto  it  in  another  whirl  or  two." 


282  EMPIEE    BUILDERS 

"Get  up,"  said  the  gentle  voice.  "You'll  never  have 
a  better  chance  to  learn  the  trick.*  But  the  foreman 
had  the  saving  grace  to  shun  anti-climaxes. 

"G'wan!  Take  the  men,  I  say;  all  of  'em,  if  you 
like." 

"Thanks,"  said  Adair  pleasantly.  "We'll  do  it,  and 
we'll  take  you,  as  well — to  answer  for  their  good  be 
havior.  Let  me  help  you  up,"  and  he  stooped  and 
snapped  the  big  one  to  his  feet  as  a  man  would  collar 
a  reluctant  boy. 

"Great  judgment !"  gasped  the  foreman.  "Say,  Mister 
Cock-o'-the-walk — where  do  you  hide  all  that  muscle?" 
And  without  waiting  for  an  answer  he  piled  a  dozen  of 
his  men  upon  the  engine  and  followed  them,  still  mut 
tering. 

It  was  a  partly  surfaced  ten  miles  over  which  the  spe 
cial  train  thundered  for  the  third  time  since  dawn- 
breaking,  and  Gallagher  took  the  last  wheel-turn  out  of 
the  956.  None  the  less,  the  sun  was  reddening  the  west 
ern  mountains  when  the  Italians  took  ground  at  the 
mysterious  gap.  The  rails  were  found  in  the  stream,  as 
Adair  had  predicted,  and  it  was  a  work  of  minutes  only 
to  snake  them  up  the  embankment  and  to  spike  them 
lightly  into  place.  But  when  Adair,  for  the  healing  of 
wounds,  had  thrust  a  bank-note  into  the  hand  of  the 
Wicklow  man,  and  the  special  was  once  more  on  its  un 
hindered  way  westward,  the  sun  had  fairly  topped  the 


THE    MILLS    OF   THE    GODS  283 

eastern  range,  and  Johnson,  the  porter  of  the  "01,"  was 
shouting  across  the  rocketing  tender  that  breakfast  was 
served. 

The  young  man  in  the  London-cut  clothes  might  have 
climbed  back  to  the  car  over  the  coal;  or  Gallagher 
would  have  stopped  for  him.  But  he  elected  to  stay 
in  the  cab,  and  he  was  still  there,  hanging  from  the  open 
window  on  Jackson's  side,  when  the  one-car  special  woke 
the  echoes  with  its  whistle,  clattered  in  over  the  switches 
at  Horse  Creek,  and  came  to  a  stand  opposite  the  Mac- 
Morroghs'  commissary. 

It  was  Brian  MacMorrogh  who  came  across  the  tracks 
to  greet  Adair,  and,  since  this  was  their  first  meeting,  he 
made  the. mistake  of  his  life  in  calling  the  young  di 
rector  by  name. 

"The  top  of  the  morning  to  you,  Misther  Adair.  Is  it 
Misther  Colbrith  you'd  be  looking  for?" 

"It  is,"  said  Adair  shortly,  not  failing  to  remark  that 
the  barrel-bodied,  black-bearded  man  seemed  to  recog 
nize  and  to  be  expecting  him. 

"'Tis  two  hours  gone  they  all  are,"  was  the  oily- 
voiced  explanation.  "Up  the  grade  and  over  to  Copah. 
But  they'll  be  back  to-morrow,  Heaven  savin'  thim,  and 
we'll  make  you  comfortable  here — as  comfortable  as  we 
can." 

"That  will  be  quickly  "done,"  said  Adair,  swinging 
down  from  the  engine  step.  "Just  give  me  a  horse  and 


284  EMPIEE    BUILDERS 

tell  me  which  way  they  have  gone,  and  I'll  overtake 
them." 

But  here  the  barrel-bodied  one  spread  his  hands  help 
lessly* 

"Tis  just  our  luck!"  he  protested,  in  the  keenest 
self-reproach.  "There  isn't  a  horse  or  a  mule  in  camp 
that  you  could  get  a  mile  an  hour  out  of.  In  fact,  I'm 
thinking  there  isn't  anny  horses  at  all  I" 


XXII 

THE  MAN  ON  HORSEBACK 

Since  the  weather  was  rather  threatening,  and  the 
promise  of  October  in  the  inter-mountain  region  is  not 
to  be  lightly  trifled  with,  Mr.  Colbrith  pressed  for  an 
early  start  on  the  seventeen-mile  buckboard  jaunt  to 
Copah  over  the  detour  survey. 

It  was  by  his  express  command  that  the  private-car 
party  was  called  at  daybreak,  and  that  breakfast  was 
served  in  the  Nadia  at  six  o'clock.  And  at  seven  sharp, 
which  chanced  to  be  the  precise  time  of  day  when 
Adair's  commandeered  Italians  were  spiking  the  last  of 
the  displaced  rails  into  position  at  the  gap  in  the  track 
thirty-three  miles  away,  the  buckboards  were  drawn  up 
at  the  steps  of  the  president's  car. 

For  reasons  charitable,  as  well  as  practical,  Ford  had 
planned  to  leave  Frisbie  out  of  this  second  dance  of  at 
tendance  upon  the  president.  The  track-layers  were 
well  up  toward  the  head  of  Horse  Creek  gulch,  with 
Brissac  to  drive;  but  during  the  night  the  Louisianian 

285 


286  EMPIEE   BUILDEKS 

had  reported  in  with  a  touch  of  mountain  fever,  and 
Ford  had  asked  Frisbie  to  go  up  and  take  his  place. 

This  was  one  of  Ford's  peg-drivings  for  the  day;  and 
another  was  timed  for  the  moment  of  outsetting.  For 
conveyances  for  the  party  there  were  the  two  double- 
seated  buckboards  used  on  the  canyon  trip  the  previous 
day,  and  one  other  with  a  single  seat;  but  there  were 
only  two  drivers,  the  third  man,  who  had  brought  the 
single-seated  rig  from  Copah,  having  been  prevailed 
upon  by  Ford  to  disappear. 

Ford  directed  the  distribution  of  the  trippers  arbitra 
rily,  and  was  amazed  when  the  president  acquiesced 
without  protest.  Mr.  Colbrith,  the  doctor's  wife,  and 
Penfield,  were  to  go  in  the  leading  vehicle ;  "Aunt  Hester 
Adair,  Miss  Van  Bruce,  and  the  doctor,  in  the  second; 
and  Ford  drove  the  single-seated  third,  with  Miss  Alicia 
for  his  companion. 

"I  think  you  must  have  taken  Uncle  Sidney  una 
wares,"  said  Alicia,  when  the  caravan  was  toiling  at  a 
slow  footpace  along  the  rough  wagon  road  paralleling 
the  Horse  Creek  grade. 

<rYou  mean  that  he  might  have  objected  to  your 
driver?  You  are  a  whole  lot  safer  with  me  than  you 
would  be  with  one  of  those  livery-stable  helpers  up 
ahead/' 

"Oh,  no;  I  didn't  mean  just  that.  But  you  know  He 
usually  plans  all  tHe  little  details  himself,  and—33 


THE   MAN   ON   HORSEBACK  287 

"And  the  fact  that  somebody  else  plans  them  is  suffi 
cient  excuse  for  a  rearrangement.  That  is  one  of  the 
penalties  he  pays  for  being  the  big  boss/'  laughed  Ford. 
Since  the  yesterday  was  now  safely  yesterday,  and  to 
day  was  his  own,  there  was  no  room  for  anything  but 
pure  joy. 

"You  are  a  ^big  boss/  too,  aren't  you  ?"  she  said,  match 
ing  his  light-hearted  mood. 

"I  was,  in  a  way,  until  your  uncle  came  over  and 
eclipsed  me." 

"And  you  will  be  again  when  Uncle  Sidney  moves  a 
little  farther  along  in  his  orbit." 

"That  remains  to  be  seen.  There  is  yet  plenty  of  time 
for  him  to  abolish  me,  permanently,  before  he  goes  on 
his  way  rejoicing." 

"But  you  are  not  going  to  resign,  you  know/'  she  re 
minded  him. 

"Am  I  not  ?"  Then  he  took  his  courage  by  the  proper 
grip  and  went  on  with  sudden  gravity :  "That  rests  en 
tirely  with  you." 

"Mr.  Ford !  Aren't  you  a  little  unfair?"  She  did  not 
pretend  to  misunderstand  him. 

"I  am  open  to  convincement,"  he  affirmed. 

"It  is  making  me  Uncle  Sidney's  executioner,  on  one 
hand ;  or  yours,  on  the  other." 

He  pressed  the  point  relentlessly. 

"There  are  only  two  horns  to  the  dilemma :  either  Mr. 


288  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

Colbrith,  or  a  man  named  Stuart  Ford,  will  have  to  walk 
the  official  plank.  Because  Mr.  Colbrith  is  your  relative, 
I'm  willing  to  be  the  victim.  But  you  must  say  that  it 
is  what  you  wish.  That  is  my  price." 

"I  say  it  is  unfair/'  she  repeated.  "Why  should  you 
put  the  burden  of  the  decision  upon  poor  me  ?" 

"Because,  if  you  were  not  concerned,,  there  would  be, 
to  put  it  in  good  Hibernian,  only  one  horn  to  the  dilem 
ma — and  your  uncle  would  be  impaled  upon  that  one." 

"Mercy!"  she  shuddered,  in  mock  dismay.  "That 
sounds  almost  vindictive.  Are  you  vindictive,  Mr. 
Ford?" 

"Terribly,"  he  laughed.  "The  black-hearted  villain 
of  melodrama  isn't  a  patch  on  me  when  I'm  stirred." 
And  then,  more  seriously :  "But  it  isn't  altogether  a  joke. 
There  is  another  side  to  the  thing — what  you  might  call 
the  ethical,  I  suppose.  There  are  a  score  or  so  of  men  in 
the  company's  service — Frisbie  and  his  subordinates — 
whose  jobs  hang  upon  mine.  A  worse  man  than  I  ever 
aspired  to  be  might  be  loyal  to  his  friends." 

"I  wouldn't  think  of  questioning  your  loyalty  to  your 
friends,"  she  admitted. 

"Also,"  he  went  on  determinately,  "there  is  the  larger 
question  of  right  and  wrong  involved.  Is  jt-righLfor  me 
to  step  aside  and  let  an  organized  system  of  graft  and 
thievery  go  on  unchecked  ?  I  know  it  exists ;  I  have  evi 
dence  enough  to  go  before  a  grand  jury.  I'm  not  posing 


THE   MAN    ON   HOKSEBACE;  289 

as  a  saint,  or  even  as  a  muck-raker;  but  isn?t_something 
due  to  the  people  who  are  paying  the  bills  ?" 

"Now  you  are  involving  Uncle  Sidney  again;  and  I 
can't  listen  to  that." 

"He  is  innocent;  as  innocent  as  some  hundreds  of 
other  narrow-minded,  short-sighted  old  men  whom 
chance,  or  the  duplicity  of  the  real  rascals,  puts  at  the 
head  of  corporations." 

"Yet  you  would  make  him  suffer  with  the  guilty." 

"Not  willingly,  you  may  be  sure.  Not  at  all,  if  he 
would  listen  to  reason.  But  he  won't.  He'll  stand  by 
North  till  the  last  gun  is  fired;  and  while  North  stays, 
there'll  be  graft,  big  or  little,  as  the  opportunities  war 
rant." 

Alicia  held  her  peace  while  the  caravan  was  measuring 
another  half-mile  of  the  boulder-strewn  road.  Then  she 
said :  "I  feel  so  wretchedly  inadequate  to  help  you,  Mr. 
Ford.  I  wish  you  could  wait  until  you  have  talked  it 
over  with  brother." 

"So  do  I.  But  I  am  afraid  postponement  doesn't  lie 
with  me,  now.  Prom  your  uncle's  manner  and  from 
what  he  said  to  me  yesterday,  I  can't  help  feeling  that 
the  crisis  is  right  here.  For  two  days  Mr.  Colbrith  has 
been  very  plainly  leading  up  to  some  sort  of  dramatic 
climax.  I  can't  remotely  guess  what  it  is  going  to  be; 
though  I  can  guess  that  the  plot  isn't  his." 

Again  she  took  time  to  consider,  and  when  she  spoke 


290  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

they  were  nearing  the  scene  of  strenuous  activities  at 
the  moving  track-end. 

"You  don't  think  you  could  postpone  it?"  she  asked, 
almost  wistfully,  he  thought.  "I  think — I  hope — my 
brother  will  become  interested  again.  It  is  your  fault 
that  he  lost  interest,  Mr.  Ford." 

"My  fault?"  reproachfully. 

"Certainly.  You  didn't  give  him  enough  to  do.  He 
was  happy  and  contented  while  you  kept  him  hard  at 
work.  But  after  the  bonds  were  placed  and  the  money 
raised — " 

"I'm  a  miserable  sinner!"  Ford  confessed.  "And  I 
had  promised  you,  too !  But  the  battle  has  been  so  fierce 
at  this  end  of  the  line ;  and  I  couldn't  be  in  two  places  at 
one  time.  Your  brother  should  have  been  made  first 
vice-president,  instead  of  North.  Perhaps  we  can  bring 
it  about  yet — if  you  don't  call  it  all  off." 

"There  it  is  again,"  she  retorted.  "You  are  dragging 
me  in — and  trying  to  bribe  me,  too !" 

"God  forbid!"  he  said,  so  earnestly  that  she  forgave 
him.  And  then:  "I  wish  your  brother  were  here — 


now." 


"So  do  I,"  she  admitted.  Then  she  told  him  of  the 
wire  summons  sent  from  Denver,  and  of  the  shadowy 
hope  she  had  based  upon  it. 

"Where  was  your  brother  then  ?"  he  asked. 

"I  don't  know,  positively.    I  hope  he  was  in  New 


THE  MAN   ON   HOESEBACK  291 

York.  He  was  to  come  over  in  the  Campania,  in  time 
for  the  shooting  at  Mount  Ptarmigan." 

CfYou've  had  no  word  from  him  ?" 

"None." 

They  were  up  with  the  track-layers,  now,  in  a  coun 
try  of  huge  bare  hills  and  high-lying,  waterless  valleys ; 
and  the  president  had  halted  the  caravan  to  give  his 
guests  a  chance  to  see  a  modern  railroad  in  the  actual 
throes  of  evolution. 

In  a  specialist  in  the  trade,  Ford's  genius  might  have 
invoked  enthusiasm.  Speed  was  the  end  to  which  all 
of  the  young  engineer's  inventive  powers  had  been  di 
rected  ;  and  the  pace  was  furious.  On  the  leveled  grade 
ahead  of  the  track-laying  train  an  army  of  sweating  la 
borers  marched  and  counter-marched  like  trained  sol 
diers,  placing  the  cross-ties  in  position.  On  a  train  of 
specially  constructed  flat-cars  another  army  was  bolting 
together  a  long  section  of  track,  clamping  the  double  line 
of  rails  at  intervals  to  hold  them  to  gauge.  At  the  word, 
"Keady  \"  a  hauling  chain,  passing  through  an  anchored 
pulley-block  far  up  the  grade  and  back  to  the  freed 
engine  of  the  construction  train,  was  made  fast  to  the 
forward  end  of  the  bolted  section ;  a  second  word  of  com 
mand,  and  the  engine  backed  swiftly,  dragging  the  pre 
pared  section  off  over  the  rollers  of  the  flat-cars  and 
into  place  on  the  ties.  With  the  clanging  fall  of  the  final 
pair  of  rails,  a  third  army,  spike-drivers  these,  fell  upon 


292  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

the  newly  placed  steel,  shouting  their  chantey  as  they 
swung  the  great  pointed  hammers ;  and  in  the  midst  of 
this  fresh  turmoil  the  train,  with  its  brigade  of  bolters 
deftly  preparing  another  section,  was  slowly  pushed  to 
the  new  front  for  another  advance. 

"It  is  like  clockwork,"  was  Miss  Alicia's  enthusiastic 
comment.  "Did  you  invent  it,  Mr.  Ford  ?" 

Now  the  combination  of  flat-car  bolting-table,  and  the 
shifting  and  laying  by  sections,  was  Ford's  invention, 
but  he  modestly  stood  from  under. 

"Frisbie  gets  the  medal,"  he  said.  "It's  all  in  the  drill 
— every  man  knowing  what  he  has  to  do,  and  doing  it 
at  the  proper  moment.  I'd  give  something  if  I  had 
Dick's  knack  in  detail  organizing." 

She  looked  up,  laughing.  "You  have  the  funniest 
way  of  ducking  to  cover  if  you  think  a  bit  of  honest 
appreciation  is  coming  your  way,  Mr.  Ford.  You  know 
you  told  Mr.  Frisbie  how  to  do  it." 

"Did  I  ?  I  suppose  it  wouldn't  be  polite  to  contradict 
you." 

"Or  any  use.  Is  Mr.  Frisbie  here  now? — Oh,  yes; 
there  he  is."  And  then,  in  a  half -awed  whisper :  "Who 
is  that  dreadful,  Grand-Opera-villain  looking  man  he  is 
talking  to?" 

Ford's  eyes  sought  and  found  Frisbie.  He  was  stand 
ing  a  little  apart  from  the  turmoil,  talking  to  a  man  on 
horseback;  a  man  with  half -closed,  beady,  black  eyes, 


THE   MAN   ON   HOESEBACE  293 

drooping  mustaches,  and  a  face  reptilian  in  its  repul- 
siveness. 

"That  is  'Mexican  George' ;  the  MacMorrogh  Brothers' 
Idller',"  said  Ford  evenly.  "Have  you  ever  heard  of  a 
professional  man-killer,  Miss  Adair;  a  man  whose  call 
ing  is  that  of  a  hired  assassin  ?" 

She  shuddered.  ffYou  are  jesting,  I  know.  But  the 
word  fits  his  face  so  accurately.  I  saw  him  lounging 
about  the  store  at  the  camp  yesterday,  and  it  gave  me 
the  creeping  shivers  every  time  I  looked  at  him.  Do  you 
ever  have  such  instantaneous  and  unreasoning  hatreds 
at  first  sight?" 

"Now  and  then;  yes.  But  I  was  not  jesting  about 
Mexican  George.  He  is  precisely  what  the  word  implies ; 
is  hired  for  it  and  paid  for  it.  Nominally,  he  guards 
the  commissary  and  stores,  and  is  the  paymaster's  armed 
escort.  Eeally,  it  is  his  duty  to  shoot  down  any  desperate 
laborer  who,  in  the  MacMorroghs'  judgment,  needs  to 
be  killed  out  of  the  way." 

"Mercy  I"  Miss  Alicia  was  shuddering  again.  "What 
hideously  primitive  conditions!  What  is  this  terrible 
man  doing  out  here  ?" 

"Oh,  he  is  a  free  lance ;  comes  and  goes  as  he  pleases. 
No,  he's  not  quarreling  with  Dick" — answering  her  look 
of  anxiety. 

"How  do  you  know  he  isn't  ?" 

Ford  laughed.  ."Because  Dick  wouldn't  let  him  get 


294  EMPIEE    BUILDERS 

that  near.  He  knows — Hello ;  I  wonder  what  your  good 
uncle  wants  of  us." 

Mr.  Colbrith  was  standing  up  in  his  place  in  the  lead 
ing  buckboard  and  making  signals  to  the  rear  guard  of 
two.  Ford  shook  the  reins  over  his  broncos  and  drove 
around. 

The  president  was  fingering  his  thin  beard  and  wav 
ing  an  arm  toward  the  track-layers. 

"Mr. — ah — Ford/'  he  began  critically,  "is  it  necessary 
to  have  such  a  vast  army  of  men  as  that  to  lay  the 
track?" 

"I  don't  think  we  are  over-manned/'  said  Ford  good- 
naturedly.  It  was  comparatively  easy  to  be  patient  with 
Alicia  looking  on  and  listening. 

But  it  was  against  Mr.  Colbrith's  principles  to  let  a 
man  off  with  a  single  rebuttal. 

"I  am  not  at  all  convinced  of  the  worth  of  these  new 
fangled  ideas,  Mr.  Ford ;  not  at  all.  We  built  the  Pacific 
Southwestern  main  line  in  the  old,  approved  way — a  rail 
at  a  time — with  less  than  one-quarter  of  the  men  you 
have  over  there." 

"I  don't  question  it :  and  you  were  three  years  build 
ing  some  six  hundred  miles  in  a  prairie  country.  We  are 
to-day  just  six  weeks  out  of  Saint's  Rest  with  the  track 
gang,  and  in  six  more,  if  the  weather  holds,  we  shall  be 
laying  the  switches  in  the  Green  Butte  yards.  That  is 
the  difference  between  the  old  way  and  the  new." 


THE    MAN"    ON   HOKSEBACK  295 

The  president  was  turned  aside  but  not  stopped. 

"I  understand,"  he  objected  raucously.  "But  your 
expense  bills  are  something  tremendous;  tre-wendous, 
Mr.  Ford !  You  have  spent  more  money  in  three  months 
than  we  spent  in  a  full  year  on  the  main  line." 

"Quite  likely,"  agreed  Ford,  losing  interest  in  the 
pointless  discussion.  "But  with  us,  time  is  an  object; 
and  we  have  the  results  to  show  for  the  expenditure." 

At  this,  Mr.  Colbrith  took  refuge  in  innuendo,  as 
seemed  to  be  his  lately  acquired  habit. 

"You  are  very  ready  with  your  answers,  Mr.  Ford; 
very  ready,  indeed.  Let  us  see  if  you  can  continue  as 
you  have  begun." 

It  was  Miss  Alicia  who  resented  this  final  speech  of 
the  president's  when  the  buckboards  were  once  more  in 
motion,  following  the  unrailed  grade  around  the  swell 
ing  shoulders  of  the  huge  hills. 

"I  think  that  last  remark  of  Uncle  Sidney's  was 
rather  uncalled  for,"  she  said,  after  Ford  had  driven 
in  grim  silence  at  the  tail  of  the  procession  for  a  full 
mile. 

"It  is  one  of  a  good  many  uncalled-for  things  he  has 
been  saying  to  me  since  the  day  before  yesterday,"  was 
Ford's  rejoinder. 

"Yet  you  can  still  assure  me  that  you  are  not  vindic 
tive." 

"I  am  not — at  the  mere  actors  in  the  play.   But  I 


296  EMPIEE    BUILDEKS 

confess  to  an  unholy  desire  to  get  back  at  the  prompter 
— the  stage  manager  of  the  little  comedy.  I  am  only 
waiting  for  your  decision." 

"Please!"  she  said;  and  he  saw  that  the  blue  eyes 
were  growing  wistful  again. 

"I'm  done,"  he  said  quickly.  "I  shan't  put  it  up  to 
you  any  more.  I'll  do  what  I  think  I  ought  to  do,  on  my 
own  responsibility." 

But  now,  woman-like,  she  crossed  quickly  to  the  other 
side. 

"No ;  you  mustn't  deprive  me  of  my  chance,"  she  pro 
tested  soberly.  "After  a  little  while  I  shall  tell  you  what 
I  think — what  I  think  you  ought  to  do.  Only  you  must 
give  me  time." 

His  smile  came  from  the  depths  of  a  lover's  heart. 

<fYou  shall  have  all  the  time  there  is — and  then  some, 
if  I  can  compass  it.  Now  let's  talk  about  something  else. 
I've  been  boring  you  with  this  despicable  business  affair 
ever  since  you  gave  me  leave  on  that  foot-race  down  Plug 
Mountain  Tuesday  afternoon." 

"What  shall  it  be?"  she  inquired  gaily.  And  then: 
"Oh,  I  know.  One  day  last  summer — just  as  we  were 
leaving  Chicago  in  the  Nadia — you  had  begun  to  tell  me 
about  a  certain  young  woman  who  had  money,  and  who 
was — who  was — " 

" — who  was  without  her  peer  in  all  this  world,"  he 
finished  for  her.  "Yes ;  I  remember." 


THE   MAN    ON   HORSEBACK  297 

"Do  you  still  remember  her,,  as  you  do  the  conversa 
tion  ?"  she  went  on  teasingly. 

"I  have  never  lost  a  day  since  I  first  met  her." 

"Good  Sir  Galahad  I"  she  mocked.  "And  is  she  still 
worth  all  those  sacrifices  you  said  you  would  be  willing 
to  make  for  her  ?" 

"All,  and  several  more." 

Silence  for  a  little  time,  while  the  hoof-beats  of  a  horse 
fox-trotting  behind  them  drew  nearer.  It  was  the  sinis 
ter-faced  Mexican  who  ambled  into  view,  and  when  he 
overtook  the  rearmost  of  the  buckboards  he  was  a  long 
time  in  passing. 

"That  dreadful  man  I"  murmured  Alicia ;  and  she  did 
not  go  back  to  the  suspended  subject  until  he  had  trotted 
on  past  the  caravan.  Then  she  said  slowly,  taking  her 
companion's  complete  understanding  for  granted:  "It 
must  be  delicious  to  be  away  out  over  one's  depth,  like 
that!" 

"It  is,"  said  Ford  solemnly.  "It's  like— well,  I've 
never  been  sick  a  day  in  my  life  since  I  can  remember, 
but  I  should  think  it  might  be  like  a — a  sort  of  benefi 
cent  fever,  you  know.  Haven't  you  ever  had  a  touch 
of  it?" 

"Possibly — without  recognizing  it.  Can  you  describe 
the  symptoms  ?" 

"Accurately.  One  day  I  awoke  suddenly  to  the  real 
ization  that  there  was  one  woman  in  the  world :  before 


298  EMPIKE   BUILDERS 

that,  you  know,  there  had  always  been  a  good  many,  but 
never  just  one.  Then  I  began  to  discover  that  this  one 
woman  was  the  embodiment  of  an  ideal — my  ideal.  She 
said  and  did  and  looked  all  the  things  I'd  been  missing 
in  the  others.  I  wanted  to  drop  everything  and  run  after 
her." 

"How  absolutely  idyllic!"  she  murmured.  "And 
then?" 

"Then  I  had  to  come  down  to  earth  with  a  dull,  stun 
ning  swat,  of  course.  There  were  a  lot  of  commonplace, 
material  things  waiting  to  be  done,  and  it  was  up  to  me 
to  do  them.  Before  I  saw  her,  I  used  to  think  that 
nothing  could  divide  time  with  a  man's  work :  that  there 
wouldn't  be  any  time  to  divide.  Afterward,  I  found  out 
my  mistake.  Sleeping  or  waking,  every  day  and  all  day, 
she  was  there :  and  the  work  went  on  just  the  same,  or 
rather  a  whole  lot  better." 

The  long  drive  was  in  its  final  third,  and  the  wagon 
track,  which  had  transferred  itself  to  the  top  of  the 
level  railroad  grade,  admitted  speed.  By  degrees  the 
caravan  became  elongated,  with  the  president  still  in  the 
lead,  the  man  on  horseback  indifferently  ahead  or  be 
hind,  and  the  other  two  vehicles  wide  apart  and  well  to 
the  rear.  Their  isolation  was  complete  when  she  said : 

"Do  you  want  me  to  say  that  I  don't  recognize  any  of 
the  symptoms,  Mr.  Ford  ?" 

"Do  I— No !   Yes !— that  is,  I—  Heavens !  that  is  a 


THE    MAN    ON    HOESEBACK  299 

terrible  way  to  put  it !  Of  course  I  hope — I  hope  you  are 
in  love — with  the  right  person.  If  you're  not,  I — " 

She  was  weeping  silently;  weeping  because  it  would 
have  been  a  sin  to  laugh. 

"You — called  it  a  comedy  a  little  while — ago/'  she 
faltered.  "In  another  minute  it  will  be  a  tragedy.  Don't 
you  think  we  are  getting  too  far  behind  the  others  ?" 

He  whipped  up  obediently,  but  the  horses  were  in  no 
hurry.  At  the  rounding  of  the  next  shouldering  hill  the 
railroad  grade  entered  a  high,  broad  valley,  the  swelling 
hills  on  either  side  dotted  with  the  dumps  and  tunnel- 
openings  of  the  Copah  gold-diggers.  Ford  had  not  been 
through  the  upper  part  of  the  district  since  the  previous 
summer  of  pathfindings,  and  at  that  time  it  was  like  a 
dozen  other  outlying  and  hardly  accessible  fields,  scantily 
manned  and  languishing  under  the  dry  rot  of  isolation. 
But  now — 

He  was  looking  curiously  across  at  the  opposing  hill 
sides.  Black  dots,  dozens  of  them,  were  moving  from 
ledge  to  ledge,  pausing  here  and  there  to  ply  pick  and 
shovel.  Now  and  then  from  some  one  of  the  dry  arroyos 
came  the  echoes  of  a  surface  shot;  dynamite  cartridges 
thrust  into  the  earth  to  clear  away  the  drift  to  bed-rock. 
Ford  called  his  companion's  attention  to  the  activities. 

"See  what  it  does  to  a  mining  country  when  a  railroad 
comes  within  shouting  distance,"  he  said.  "The  last  time 
I  was  over  here,  this  valley  was  like  a  graveyard.  Now 


300  EMPIKE   BUILDEKS 

you'd  think  the  entire  population  of  Copah  was  up  here 
prospecting  for  gold." 

"Is  that  what  they  are  doing  ?"  she  asked.  Then  sud 
denly:  "Where  is  your  mine? — the  mine  with  my 
name?" 

He  laughed. 

"I  told  you  the  simple  truth.  I  don't  know  where  it 
is ;  though  I  suppose  it  is  up  this  way  somewhere.  Yes, 
I  remember,  Grigsby  said  it  was  on  Cow  Mountain." 

The  hill  on  their  side  of  the  valley  threw  out  a  long, 
low  spur  and  the  railroad-grade  driving  track  swept  in 
a  long  curve  around  the  spur  and  crossed  over  to  the  foot 
of  a  slope  dotted  with  the  digging  manikins. 

"By  Jove!"  said  Ford,  still  wondering.  "There  are 
twice  as  many  prospectors  out  here  as  there  were  in 
habitants  in  Copah  the  last  time  I  was  over.  The  camp 
ought  to  vote  bonds  and  give  the  railroad  company  a 
bonus." 

Farther  along,  the  grade  hugged  the  hillside,  skirting 
the  acclivity  where  the  shaft-houses  of  some  of  the  older 
mines  of  the  district  were  perched  on  little  hillocks 
formed  by  their  own  dumps,  within  easy  tramming  dis 
tance  of  the  railroad.  Opposite  and  directly  below  the 
nearest  of  these  shaft-houses  the  two  leading  buckboards 
had  stopped ;  and  the  president  was  once  more  standing 
up  and  beckoning  vigorously  to  the  laggards  in  the 
single-seated  vehicle. 


THE    MAN    ON    HORSEBACK  301 

Ford  spoke  to  his  horses  and  grimaced  as  one  who 
swallows  bitter  herbs. 

"I  wonder  what  I've  been  doing  now — or  leaving  un 
done  ?"  he  queried. 

He  was  not  kept  long  in  suspense.  When  they  drove 
up,  the  president  was  still  standing,  balancing  himself 
with  a  hand  on  the  driver's  seat  in  front.  His  thin  face 
was  working  nervously  and  the  aggressive  chin  whiskers 
moved  up  and  down  like  an  accusing  finger. 

"Dear  me!"  said  Alicia,  under  her  breath;  "Uncle 
Sidney  is  really  angry,  this  time!  What  could  have 
hap — "  She  glanced  up  at  the  mine  buildings  perched 
above  the  roadway  and  smothered  a  little  cry.  Ford's 
eyes  followed  hers.  All  across  the  slab-built  shaft-house 
and  the  lean-to  ore  sheds  was  stretched  a  huge  canvas 
sign.  And  in  letters  of  bright  blue,  freshly  painted  and 
two  feet  high,  ran  the  boastful  legend : 

THE    LITTLE    ALICIA    MINE 

THE   ONLY    PAYING   PRODUCER   IN    THE   DISTRICT 

Stuart  Ford  &  John  Grigsby,  Props. 

The  white-haired  old  man  standing  in  the  leading 
buckboard  was  trembling  with  righteous  indignation. 
Pointing  a  shaking  finger  at  the  incriminating  sign,  he 
broke  out  in  a  storm  of  accusation. 

"So,  Mr.  Ford !  This  is  why  you  changed  the  route  of 


302  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

the  extension  and  added  twelve  miles  to  its  length  I"  he 
raved.  "This  explains  why  you  suddenly  found  the 
shorter  route  impracticable!  Answer  me,  sir:  when  did 
you  become  interested  in  this  mine  ?" 

There  was  a  little  stir  of  consternation  among  the 
listeners ;  and  it  did  not  help  matters  that  the  man  on 
horseback  ambled  up  at  the  moment  and  drew  rein  be 
hind  the  doctor's  vehicle.  Ford's  hands  were  gripping 
the  reins  until  the  stiff  leathers  were  crumpled  into 
strings ;  but  it  was  Alicia's  touch  on  his  arm  that  enabled 
him  to  reply  coldly : 

"It  was  something  over  two  months  ago,  I  believe.  I 
can  give  you  the  exact  date  when  we  reach  Copah,  though 
you  will  permit  me  to  say  that  it  is  none  of  your  busi 
ness." 

Mr.  Colbrith  exploded  like  a  hastily  fired  bomb. 

"I  propose  to  make  it  some  of  my  business !  Was  it 
before  or  after  your  purchase  here  that  you  decided  upon 
the  change  of  route  ?  Answer  me  that,  Mr.  Ford !" 

Ford  wheeled  his  bronchos  and  closed  the  shouting 

gap- 

"Sit  down,  Mr.  Colbrith,"  he  said  half-menacingly. 

"If  it  is  your  purpose  to  humiliate  me  before  your 
guests,  I  shall  drive  on  and  leave  you." 

"You  don't  answer  my  question;  you  can  not  answer 
it !  You  instructed  your  assistant  to  change  the  line  of 
this  railroad  after  you  had  bought  this  mine !" 


'Answer  me,  sir  !     When  did  you  become  interested  in  this  mine  ?"   Page  303 


THE   MAN   ON    HORSEBACK  .          303 

"And  if  I  did?" 

"You  did.  And  by  so  doing,  Mr.  Ford,  you  diverted 
the  company's  money  to  your  own  personal  ends  as 
wrongfully  as  if  you  had  put  your  hands  into  the  treas 
urer's  strong-box.  In  other  words,  you  became  what 
you  have  accused  others  of  being — a  common  grafter !" 

Ford's  face  was  very  white,  and  his  lips  were  drawn 
into  thin  lines  when  he  opened  them  to  reply.  But  the 
restraining  hand  was  on  his  arm  again,  and  he  obeyed  it. 

"I  don't  care  to  talk  with  you,  about  this  matter  or 
any  other,  here  and  now.  Later  on,  perhaps,  when  you 
can  speak  without  being  abusive,  I  shall  take  the  liberty 
of  telling  you  what  I  think  of  you."  And  at  that,  he 
gave  his  horses  the  rein  and  drove  on,  swiftly,  abruptly, 
leaving  the  president  and  his  guests  to  follow  as  they 
would. 

For  some  minutes  neither  of  the  two  in  the  flying 
buckboard  could  find  words  wherewith  to  bridge  the 
miserable  chasm  so  suddenly  opened  between  them. 
Miss  Alicia's  eyes  were  tear-brightened  and  unfathom 
able;  Ford's  were  hard,  and  there  was  a  steely  light  in 
them.  It  was  Alicia  who  spoke  first. 

"I  know  it  is  not  true,  of  course — what  Uncle  Sidney 
accused  you  of,"  she  offered.  "But  tell  me  how  it  hap 
pened?" 

"I  don't  know — unless  the  devil  planned  it,"  said 
Ford  bitterly.  "I  bought  the  mine  one  day  last  summer 


304  EMPIRE   BUILDEES 

when  I  was  in  Copah,  without  premeditation,  without 
seeing  it — without  knowing  where  it  was  situated,  just 
as  I  have  told  you.  Some  little  time  afterward,  Frisbie 
came  to  me  with  the  plan  for  the  change  of  route.  I  had 
considered  it  before,  but  had  made  no  estimates.  Frisbie 
had  made  the  estimates,  and  we  decided  upon  it  at  once. 
I  haven't  been  over  here  since :  it  wasn't  necessary,  and 
I  had  other  things  to  do." 

"Did  Mr.  Frisbie  know  about  your  purchase  of  the 
mine?" 

"No.  I  don't  think  he  knows  of  it  yet.  To  tell  the 
truth,  I  was  a  little  ashamed :  it  was  a  touch  of  the  min 
ing  fever  that  everybody  gets  now  and  then  in  a  mining 
country.  Dick  would  have  guyed  me." 

"But  Mr.  Frisbie  must  have  been  over  the  line  a  great 
many  times:  how  could  he  miss  seeing  that  enormous 
sign  ?"  she  persisted. 

Ford  shook  his  head. 

"I  venture  to  say  that  the  paint  isn't  yet  dry  on  that 
sign.  It  was  put  there  for  a  purpose,  and  your  uncle  was 
told  to  look  for  it.  Grigsby  is  just  the  sort  of  fool  to 
jump  at  the  chance  to  advertise  the  mine,  and  somebody 
suggested  it  and  gave  him  the  tip  that  the  president  of 
the  railroad  was  coming  in  this  way.  Mr.  North  is  a 
very  careful  man.  He  doesn't  neglect  any  of  the  little 
details." 

The  high  valley  was  falling  away  into  a  broken  gulch, 


THE   MAN    ON   HORSEBACK  305 

and  the  railway-grade  driving-path  clung  closer  to  the 
hillsides.  At  the  next  turn  the  town  of  Copah  came  into 
view,  and  the  road  became  a  shelf  on  the  slope  two  hun 
dred  feet  above  the  main  street  and  paralleling  it.  Alicia 
was  looking  down  upon  the  town  when  she  said : 

"What  shall  you  do?" 

Ford's  laugh  was  not  mirthful. 

"I  have  already  done  it.  I  shall  perhaps  be  permitted 
to  see  you  all  safely  back  to  the  Nadia,  and  over  the 
rough  track  to  Saint's  Rest.  More  than  that  I  fancy  Mr. 
Colbrith  will  not  allow — and  possibly  not  that  much." 

Miss  Adair  was  still  looking  down  upon  the  town ;  and 
now  Ford  looked.  Instantly  he  saw  that  something  un 
usual  was  going  on.  Notwithstanding  the  number  of 
men  afield  on  the  hills,  the  main  street  of  the  camp  was 
restlessly  alive.  Horsemen  were  galloping  back  and 
forth;  in  front  of  the  outfitting  stores  freighters  were 
hastily  loading  their  pack  animals;  at  every  gathering 
place  there  were  knots  of  excited  men  talking  and  ges 
ticulating. 

Ford  was  puzzled.  At  another  time  he  would  quickly 
have  put  the  obvious  two  and  two  together  to  make  the 
equally  obvious  four.  But  now  he  merely  said :  "That's 
curious;  mighty  curious.  Where  do  you  suppose  all 
those  people  came  from  ?" 

Alicia's  rejoinder  was  not  an  answer  to  the  half- 
mechanical  query. 


306  EMPIKE   BUILDEES 

"Mr.  Ford,  a  little  while  ago  I  told  you  I  must  have 
time  to  consider :  I — I  have  considered.  You  must  fight 
for  your  life  and  your  good  name.  You  must  make 
Uncle  Sidney  see  things  as  they  are — that  they  are  not 
as  he  thinks  they  are." 

"I  can't/'  he  said  stubbornly.  "Your  condition  re 
verses  your  decision.  If  I  am  to  fight  with  any  hope  of 
winning,  after  what  has  transpired  to-day,  Mr.  Colbrith 
will  have  to  be  eliminated." 

He  had  pulled  the  broncos  down  to  a  walk.  There  was 
a  soft  thudding  of  hoofs  on  the  yielding  earth  of  the 
grade  behind,  but  neither  of  them  heard. 

"You  are  disappointing  me/'  she  protested,  and  now 
the  hesitation  was  all  gone.  "A  few  minutes  ago,  before 
this  miserable  thing  happened,  you  were  telling  me  of 
your  ideal  ...  a  woman  may  have  an  ideal,  too,  Mr. 
Ford." 

"Yes  ?"  he  said  eagerly. 

"My  ideal  is  the  knight  without  fear  and  without  re 
proach — and  also  without  limitations.  He  will  never 
say,  'I  can  not.'  He  will  say,  'I  will/  and  not  for  my 
sake,  but  because  his  own  sense  of  justice  and  mercy  and 
loving-kindness  will  go  hand  in  hand  with  his  ambi 
tion." 

"One  word,"  he  broke  in  passionately;  and  now  the 
soft  thudding  of  hoofs  had  drawn  so  near  that  the  pres 
ence  of  the  overtaking  horseman  might  have  been  felt. 


THE    MAN    ON    HOKSEBACK  307 

"My  little  allegory  didn't  deceive  you;  you  are  the  one 
woman,  Alicia,  dear.  I  didn't  mean  to  tell  you  yet, 
though  I  think  you  have  known  it  all  along:  I  had  an 
idea  that  I  wanted  to  do  something  worthy — something 
big  enough  to  be  worth  while — before  I  spoke.  But  you 
have  given  me  leave;  don't  say  you  haven't  given  me 
leave!" 

"You  have  taken  it,"  she  said  softly,  adding:  "And 
that  is  what  a  woman  likes,  I  think.  But  you  mustn't 
spoil  my  ideal,  Stuart — indeed,  you  mustn't.  You  are 
young,  strong,  invincible,  as  my  knight  should  be.  But 
when  you  strike  you  must  also  spare.  You  say  there  is 
no  way  save  the  one  you  have  indicated;  you  must  find 
a  way." 

He  smiled  ruefully. 

"You  give  the  cup  of  water  only  to  take  it  away  again. 
I'd  rather  build  ten  railroads  than  to  attempt  to  smash 
North  and  his  confederates  through  your  uncle.  You 
see,  I'm  frightfully  handicapped  right  at  the  start — 
with  this  mine  business  hanging  over  me.  But  if  you 
say  it  has  to  be  done,  it  shall  be.  I'll  win  Mr.  Colbrith 
over,  in  spite  of  all  that  has  happened ;  and  he  shall  fire 
North  and  the  MacMorroghs  first  and  prosecute  them 
afterward.  I've  said  it." 

It  was  just  here  that  the  broncos  shied — inward, 
loward  the  hill.  Ford  gathered  the  slack  reins,  and  Miss 
Adair  looked  up  and  gave  a  little  shriek.  Noiselessly, 


308  EMPIKE   BUILDEES 

and  so  close  upon  the  blackboard  that  he  might  have 
touched  either  of  its  occupants  with  his  rawhide  quirt, 
rode  the  Mexican.  When  they  discovered  him  he  was 
leaning  forward,  his  half-closed  eyes  mere  slits  with  pin 
points  of  black  fire  to  mark  them,  and  his  repulsive  face 
a  stolid  mask.  Ford's  hand  went  instinctively  to  the 
whip :  it  was  the  only  available  weapon.  But  the  Mex 
ican  merely  touched  his  flapping  sombrero  and  rode  on 
at  the  shuffling  fox-trot. 

"That  man,  again  I"  shivered  Alicia,  when  the  portent 
of  evil  had  passed  out  of  sight  around  the  next  curve  in 
the  grade. 

But  Ford's  concern  was  deeper  than  her  passing  thrill 
of  repulsion. 

"Did  you  notice  his  horse's  hoofs  as  he  went  by  ?"  he 
asked  soberly. 

"No,"  she  said. 

"I  did.  He  dismounted  somewhere  behind  us  and 
covered  them  with  sacking." 

"What  for?"  she  asked,  shivering  again  with  the 
nameless  dread. 

"You  recall  what  I  was  saying  when  the  broncos 
shied :  his  object  was  to  creep  up  behind  us  and  listen. 
He  has  done  it  more  than  once  since  we  left  the  end-of- 
track,  and  this  time — " 

"Yes?" 

"This  time  he  heard  what  he  wanted  to  hear." 


THE   MAN   ON   HORSEBACK  309 

Beyond  the  curve  which  had  hidden  the  Mexican,  the 
wagon-road  left  the  grade,  descending  abruptly  upon 
the  town.  Ford  looked  back  from  the  turn  and  saw  that 
the  other  two  vehicles  were  not  yet  in  sight. 

"Shall  we  wait  for  your  aunt  and  the  others?"  he 
asked. 

Her  smile  was  a  sufficient  reward  for  the  bit  of  tactful 
forethought. 

"I'm  sure  we  have  left  the  conventions  far  enough 
behind  not  to  be  unduly  terrified  by  them.  I  am  not 
afraid  to  go  in  unchaperoned.  Besides,  I  heard  Uncle 
Sidney  telling  Doctor  Van  Bruce  that  our  rooms  at  the 
hotel  had  been  engaged  for  us." 

Ford  drove  carefully  down  the  steep  side  street  which 
was  the  approach  to  the  hotel.  An  excited  throng  blocked 
the  sidewalk,  and  the  lobby  seemed  to  be  a  miniature 
stock  exchange.  Single-eyed,  Ford  fought  a  passage 
through  the  crowd  with  Alicia  on  his  arm,  heeding  noth 
ing  until  he  had  seen  her  safely  above  stairs  and  in  the 
sitting-room  of  the  president's  reservation,  with  a  cheer 
ful  fire  in  the  big  sheet-iron  stove  for  her  comforting. 
Then  he  went  down  and  elbowed  his  way  through  the 
clamorous  lobby  to  the  clerk's  desk. 

"Suppose  you  take  a  minute  or  two  off  and  tell  me 
what  this  town  has  gone  crazy  about,  Hildreth,"  he  said, 
with  a  backward  nod  toward  the  lobby  pandemonium. 

"Why,  Great  Scott !  Mr.  Ford — have  you  got  this  far 


310  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

into  it  without  finding  out?"  was  the  astounded  rejoin 
der.  "It's  a  gold  strike  on  Cow  Mountain — the  biggest 
since  Cripple  Creek!  We've  doubled  our  population 
since  seven  o'clock  this  morning;  and  by  this  time  to 
morrow  .  .  .  Say,  Mr.  Ford;  for  heaven's  sake,  get 
your  railroad  in  here!  We'll  all  go  hungry  within  an 
other  twenty-four  hours — can't  get  supplies  for  love  or 
money !" 

Ford  turned  away  and  looked  out  upon  the  stock-sell 
ing  pandemonium  with  unseeing  eyes.  The  chance — the 
heaven-sent  hour  that  strikes  only  once  in  a  life-time  for 
the  builders  of  empire — had  come:  and  he  was  only 
waiting  for  the  arrival  of  the  president  to  find  himself 
rudely  thrust  aside  from  the  helm  of  events. 


XXIII 

THE  DEADLOCK 

"No,  Mr.  Ford;  there  is  no  explanation  that  will  ex 
plain  away  the  incriminating  fact.  This  is  a  matter 
which  involves  the  good  name  of  the  Pacific  South 
western  company,  through  its  officials,  and  I  must  insist 
upon  your  resignation." 

The  battle  was  on,  with  the  two  combatants  facing 
each  other  in  the  privacy  of  the  president's  room  in  the 
Copah  hotel.  Since  Alicia  had  made  him  exchange  the 
sword  of  extermination  for  the  olive  branch,  Ford  was 
fighting  on  the  defensive,  striving  good-naturedly  and 
persistently  to  keep  his  official  head  on  his  shoulders. 

"I've  admitted  that  it  looks  pretty  bad,  Mr.  Colbrith; 
but  you  will  concede  the  one  chance  in  a  hundred  that 
no  wrong  was  intended.  I  merely  did,  on  the  ground, 
what  thousands  of  investors  in  mining  chances  do  the 
world  over — bought  an  interest  in  a  mine  without  know 
ing  or  caring  greatly  into  what  particular  mountain  the 
mine  tunnel  was  driven." 

Mr.  Colbrith  frowned.  He  was  of  that  elder  genera- 
311 


312  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

tion  of  masters  which  looked  with  cold  disapproval  upon 
any  side  ventures  on  the  part  of  the  subordinate. 

"The  company  has  paid  you  liberally  for  your  time 
and  your  undivided  attention,  Mr.  Ford.  No  man  can 
serve  two  masters.  Your  appointment  as  assistant  to 
the  president  did  not  contemplate  your  engaging  in 
other  business." 

Ford  carefully  suppressed  the  smile  which  the  bit  of 
industrial  martinetry  provoked. 

"As  to  that/'  he  said  placably,  "I  can  assure  you  that 
the  gold-digging  has  been  purely  an  investment  on  my 
part." 

"But  an  investment  which  you  should  not  have  made/' 
insisted  the  president  judicially.  "If  it  had  not  tempted 
you  to  the  breach  of  trust,  it  was  still  inexpedient — most 
undeniably  inexpedient.  An  official  high  in  the  counsels 
of  a  great  corporation  should  be  like  Caesar's  wife — 
above  suspicion." 

This  time  Ford's  smile  could  not  be  wholly  repressed. 
"I  grant  you  it  was  foolhardy,  in  the  economic  point  of 
view,"  he  confessed.  "I  took  a  long  chance  of  going  ten 
thousand  dollars  to  the  bad.  But  mine-buying  is  a  dis 
ease — as  contagious  as  the  measles.  Everybody  in  a  min 
ing  country  takes  a  flyer,  at  least  once.  The  experienced 
ones  will  tell  you  that  nobody  is  immune.  Take  your 
own  case,  now :  if  you  don't  keep  a  pretty  tight  hold  on 
your  check-book,  Mr.  Colbrith,  Cow  Mountain  will — " 


THE    DEADLOCK  313 

The  president  frowned  again ;  more  portentously,  this 
time. 

"This  levity  is  most  reprehensible,  Mr.  Ford,"  he  said 
stiffly.  "I  trust  I  know  my  duty  as  the  head  of  a  great 
railway  company  too  well  to  be  carried  away  on  every 
baseless  wave  of  excitement  that  fires  the  imagination  of 
the  mining-camp  I  chance  to  be  visiting."  Mr.  Colbrith 
was  not  above  mixing  metaphor  when  the  provocation 
was  sufficiently  great. 

"Baseless?"  echoed  Ford.  "Surely  you  don't  doubt 
.  .  .  Why,  Mr.  Colbrith,  this  strike  is  the  biggest  thing 
that  has  happened  in  the  mining  world  since  the  dis 
covery  of  the  wedge-veins  in  Cripple  Creek !" 

The  president  shrugged  his  thin  shoulders  as  one 
whose  mission  in  life  is  to  be  sturdily  conservative  after 
all  the  remainder  of  mankind  has  struck  hands  with 
frenzied  optimism. 

"Nonsense!"  he  rasped  contemptuously.  "What  hap 
pens?  Two  men  come  to  town  with  certain  rich 
specimens  which  they  claim  to  have  taken  out  of  their 
prospect  hole  on  Cow  Mountain.  That  was  at  seven 
o'clock  last  night,  less  than  twenty-four  hours  ago,  and 
some  two  or  three  thousand  lunatics  have  already  rushed 
here  in  the  belief — founded  upon  a  mere  boast,  it  may 
be — that  a  great  gold  reef  underlies  Cow  Mountain.  By 
this  time  to-morrow — " 

Ford  took  him  up  promptly.  "Yes ;  and  by  this  time 


314  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

to-morrow  the  Denver  Mining  Exchange  will  be  howling 
itself  hoarse  over  Copah  mining  shares,  like  those  curb 
stone  fellows  down-stairs ;  the  hunt  will  be  up,  and  every 
feeder  the  Pacific  Southwestern  system  has  will  be  send 
ing  its  quota  of  gold-seekers  to  the  new  field.  That  isn't 
what  you  were  going  to  say,  I  know;  but  it  is  what  is 
going  to  happen.  Mr.  Colbrith,  it's  the  chance  of  a  cen 
tury  for  the  Pacific  Southwestern  company,  and  you  are 
deliberately  trying  to  fire  the  one  man  who  can  make  the 
most  of  it." 

The  president's  lack  of  the  sense  of  humor  made  it 
hard  for  him  at  times.  He  was  sitting  very  erect  in  the 
straight-backed  hotel  chair  when  he  said:  "Mr.  Ford, 
there  are  occasions  when  your  conceit  is  insufferable.  Do 
you  imagine  for  a  moment  that  you  are  the  only  engineer 
in  the  United  States  who  can  build  railroads,  sir  ?" 

"Oh,  no." 

"Then  perhaps  you  will  be  good  enough  to  explain 
your  meaning?" 

"It  was  a  poor  attempt  at  a  jest,"  said  the  young  man, 
rather  lamely.  "Yet  it  had  the  truth  behind  it,  in  a 
way.  I  predict  that  this  is  the  beginning  of  one  of  the 
biggest  mining  rushes  the  world  ever  saw.  We  are  within 
one  hundred  and  forty  miles  of  Copah  with  a  practicable 
railroad ;  we  are  within  twelve  miles  with  a  track  which 
must  be  made  practicable  while  the  band  plays.  If  you 
discharge  your  entire  engineering  corps  at  this  crisis — " 


THE    DEADLOCK  315 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  interrupted  the  president  crust 
ily.  "I  have  not  asked  your  force  to  resign." 

"Not  meaning  to,  perhaps/'  countered  the  young  man, 
maliciously  rejoicing  in  the  hope  that  he  had  found  one 
vulnerable  link  in  the  president's  coat  of  mail.  "But  if 
I  go,  the  entire  department  will  go.  Every  man  in  it  is 
my  friend,  as  well  as  my  subordinate;  and  they  know 
very  well  that  if  they  shouldn't  go,  your  new,  chief 
would  fire  them  and  put  in  his  own  men." 

"Ha!"  said  the  president,  straightening  up  again. 
"Am  I  to  understand  that  you  are  threatening  me,  Mr. 
Ford." 

"No,  indeed;  I  am  only  stating  a  fact.  But  it  is  a 
pretty  serious  fact.  Let  us  suppose,  for  the  sake  of  the 
argument,  that  my  prediction  comes  true;  that  within 
thirty-six  or  forty-eight  hours  Saint's  Best  is  packed 
with  people  trying  to  get  to  Copah.  Your  new  chief,  if 
you  shall  have  found  him,  will  hardly  be  in  the  saddle. 
When  he  comes  he  will  have  to  reorganize  the  depart 
ment,  break  in  new  men,  learn  by  hard  knocks  what  I 
have  been  learning  in  detail — " 

Mr.  Colbrith  thrust  out  a  thin  lip  of  obstinate  deter 
mination. 

"And  if  he  does,  your  hypothetical  rush  will  simply 
have  to  wait,  Mr.  Ford.  We  have  the  key  to  the  Copah 
door." 

"Don't  you  fool  yourself!"  snapped  Ford,  forgetting 


316  EMPIEE   BUILDEES 

his  role  of  the  humble  one  for  the  moment.  "The  Trans 
continental  is  only  forty  miles  away  at  Jack's  Canyon, 
with  a  pretty  decent  stage  road.  Long  before  you  can 
get  the  extension  in  shape  to  carry  passengers,  or  even 
freight,  the  other  line  will  be  known  from  Maine  to 
California  as  the  keyholder  to  this  district !" 

That  shot  told.  The  president  was  not  yet  convinced 
that  the  Copah  boom  was  real ;  but  there  was  the  chance 
that  it  might  be — always  the  chance.  And  to  the  over 
cautious  the  taking  of  chances,  however  remote,  is  like 
the  handling  of  a  snake:  a  thing  to  inspire  creeping 
horrors. 

"If  you  could  convince  me,  Mr.  Ford,  that  your  in 
terest  in  that  mine  did  not  influence  you  in  changing 
the  route  of  the  extension/*  lie  began;  but  Ford  took 
him  up  sharply. 

"I  can't ;  and  I  can  say  no  more  than  I  have  said." 

Mr.  Colbrith  got  up  and  went  to  the  window  to  look 
down  upon  the  excited  throng  in  the  street.  It  did  look 
real. 

"Perhaps  we  might  leave  matters  as  they  are,  pending 
a  future  investigation,  Mr.  Ford/'  he  said,  turning  back 
to  his  victim,  who  was  methodically  clipping  the  end 
from  a  cigar. 

"No,"  was  the  brittle  rejoinder. 

Again  the  president  took  time  to  look  down  into  the 
crowded  street.  His  next  attack  was  from  the  rear. 


THE    DEADLOCK  317 

"But  I  have  understood  that  you  do  not  wish  to  re 
sign.  Let  us  be  magnanimous,  Mr.  Ford,  and  agree  to 
hang  this  matter  up  until — until  this  supposed  crisis  is 
past." 

"No,"  was  the  curt  reply.  "I  have  changed  my  mind. 
I  don't  think  I  want  to  work  for  you  any  longer,  Mr. 
Colbrith." 

"Not  if  I  withdrew  my — ah — objections  ?" 

"No." 

Silence  again.  The  packed  lobby  of  the  hotel  had 
overflowed  upon  the  plank  sidewalk,  and  the  din  of  the 
buyers  and  sellers  rose  like  the  noise  of  a  frantic  street 
fight.  Ford's  half  jesting  remark  about  the  possibility 
of  the  microbe  finding  its  way  into  the  blood  of  the  pres 
ident  was  not  so  pointless  as  the  old  man's  retort  sought 
to  make  it  appear.  It  was  the  wheat  pit  which  had  given 
Mr.  Colbrith  his  first  half -million ;  and  as  he  listened  to 
the  hoarse  cries,  the  thing  which  he  hoped  was  safely 
caution-killed  began  to  stir  within  him.  Suddenly  he 
picked  a  word  or  two  out  of  the  sidewalk  clamor  that 
made  him  turn  swiftly  upon  the  silent  young  man. 

"They  are  selling  'Little  Alicia' — your  stock — down 
there !"  he  gasped.  "Have  you — have  you — " 

"No ;  I  haven't  put  mine  on  the  market.  It's  some  of 
my  partner's,  Grigsby's,  stock.  I  suppose  he  couldn't 
stand  the  push." 

Once  more  the  president  listened.  Only  an  ex-wrestler 


318  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

in  the  wheat  pit  could  have  picked  intelligence  out  of 
the  Babel  of  puts  and  calls. 

"It's  up  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  I"  he  exploded.  "What 
did  you  pay  for  your  shares,  Mr.  Ford  ?" 

"Twenty,"  said  Ford  coolly. 

"Good  Heavens!  I — I  hope  you  hold  a  safe  ma 
jority?" 

"Xo ;  we  broke  even,  Grigsby  and  I.  I  have  fifty  per 
cent." 

The  president  groaned. 

"I — I'll  excuse  you,  Mr.  Ford.  Get  down  there  at  once 
and  buy  that  other  necessary  share !" 

Ford  shook  his  head  with  predetermined  gloom.  "No, 
Mr.  Colbrith,  I'm  not  buying  any  more  mining  stock. 
What  I  did  buy  seems  to  have  cost  me  my  job." 

"But,  my  dear  young  man !  This  is  a — a  crisis.  You 
are  likely  to  lose  control  of  your  property !  Or,  at  least, 
it  is  soaring  to  a  point  at  which  you  will  never  be  able 
to  secure  the  control." 

Ford  came  up  smiling.  "You  forget  that  this  is  mere 
mad  excitement,  Mr.  Colbrith,"  he  said,  handing  back 
the  president's  own  phrase.  "To-morrow,  I  dare  say,  I 
shall  be  able  to  buy  at  twenty  again." 

The  president  came  away  from  the  window  and  sat 
down.  His  face  was  twitching  and  the  thin  white  hands 
were  tremulous. 

"There  may  be  more  in  this  gold  discovery  than  I  have 


THE    DEADLOCK  319 

been  willing  to  admit,"  he  said  abstractedly,  "and  in 
that  case  .  .  .  Mr.  Ford,  upon  what  terms  will  you 
consent  to  go  on  and  whip  this  line  of  ours  into  shape  ?" 

Ford  came  out  of  the  fog  of  discouragement  with  a 
bound. 

"A  complete  change  in  the  management  of  the  Pacific 
Southwestern,  Mr.  Colbrith.  Xorth  and  his  grafters 
must  go." 

The  president  did  not  fly  into  wrathful  shards,  as  Ford 
fully  expected.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  fingering  the 
white  goafs-beard  with  one  nervous  hand,  and  appar 
ently  listening  half-absently  to  the  clamor  in  the  street. 

"Don't  be  unreasonable,  Mr.  Ford/'  he  said  quite 
mildly.  "You  know  we  can't  consider  anything  like  that 
at  the  present  moment." 

"It  must  be  considered,"  Ford  persisted.  "Ever  since 
I  quit  being  a  division  superintendent,  North  has  ob 
structed,  lied  about  me,  fought  me.  The  time  has  come 
when,  if  I  stay,  I  must  have  a  free  hand.  I  can't  have  it 
while  he  is  out  of  jail." 

"That  is  strong  language  to  apply  to  our  first  vice- 
president,  Mr.  Ford.  And  I  can  only  believe  that  you 
are  prejudiced — unduly  prejudiced.  But  all  this  may 
be  taken  up  later.  As  you  suggest,  we  may  be  losing 
very  precious  time." 

Ford  got  upon  his  feet. 

"Promise  me  that  you  will  give  the  Denver  manage- 


320  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

merit  as  thorough  an  investigation  as  you  have  given  me, 
Mr.  Colbrith;  do  that,  and  give  me  absolute  authority 
over  the  MacMorroghs  and  their  men  for  one  week ;  and 
before  the  week's  end  we'll  be  hauling  passengers  and 
freight  into  Copah  over  our  own  rails." 

For  a  moment  the  president  seemed  to  be  on  the  point 
of  yielding.  Then  his  habitual  caution  thrust  out  its 
foot  and  tripped  him. 

"I  can't  be  pushed,  Mr.  Ford,"  he  complained,  with"  a 
return  of  the  irritated  tone.  "Let  the  matter  rest  for 
the  present.  And — and  you  may  consider  yourself  re 
lieved  from  duty  until  I  have  gone  a  little  deeper  into 
these  charges  against  you.  Mr.  North  accuses  you,  and 
you  accuse  Mr.  North.  I  must  have  time  to  approach 
these  matters  deliberately.  I  don't  know  which  of  you 
to  trust." 

It  was  a  deadlock.  Ford  bowed  and  laid  his  hand  on 
the  door. 

"You  are  still  the  president  of  the  Pacific  Southwest 
ern,  Mr.  Colbrith,  and  while  you  remain  president — " 

The  old  man's  pride  of  office  took  fire  like  tow  in  a 
furnace. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that,  Mr.  Ford  ?  Make  your 
self  clear,  sir !"  he  quavered. 

"I  mean  just  this:  if  your  niece,  Miss  Alicia  Adair, 
hadn't  been  good  enough  to  say  that  she  will  be  my  wife, 
I'd  carry  this  thing  up  to  the  board  of  directors  and  do 


THE    DEADLOCK  321 

my  level  best  to  have  you  put  where  you  could  do  the 
least  harm." 

"You?  Alicia?"  the  old  man  shrilled.  And  then,  in 
an  access  of  senile  rage  that  shook  him  like  a  leaf  in  the 
wind :  "I  said  you  were  suspended — you  are  discharged, 
sir — here  and  now!  If  you  give  another  order  as  an 
official  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern  company,  I'll — I'll 
put  you  through  the  courts  for  it !" 

Ford  opened  the  door  and  went  out,  leaving  the  presi 
dent  clutching  his  chair  with  one  hand  and  balling  the 
other  into  a  shaking  fist.  The  die  was  cast,  and  he  had 
thrown  a  blank  at  the  very  moment  when  the  game 
seemed  to  be  turning  his  way.  What  would  Alicia  say  ? 

As  if  the  unspoken  query  had  evoked  her,  the  door  of 
her  room  opened  silently  and  she  stood  before  him  in  the 
corridor. 

"Tell  me,"  she  commanded. 

"We  have  fought  it  out,  and  I've  had  my  beating,"  he 
said  soberly.  "When  I  thought  I  had  him  fairly  down, 
— he  was  actually  begging  me  to  stay  on  with  the  com 
pany, — we  got  tangled  up  again  over  North,  and  he  fired 
me  bodily." 

"Did  you — did  you  tell  him  about  our — " 

"Yes ;  and  that  was  what  set  off  the  final  fireworks." 

She  put  her  hands  on  his  shoulders  and  made  him 
face  her  squarely. 

"Stuart,  did  you  lose  your  temper?" 


322  EMPIEE    BUILDEKS 

"I — Fm  afraid  I  did — just  at  the  last,  you  know.  It's 
simply  an  unspeakable  state  of  affairs,  Alicia,  dear!  At 
a  moment  when  we  should  be  setting  the  whole  world 
afire  in  a  superhuman  effort  to  flog  this  piece  of  con 
struction  track  into  shape,  your  uncle  paralyzes  every 
thing!" 

The  constraining  touch  of  her  hands  became  almost  a 
caress.  "What  shall  you  do,  Stuart?  Is  there  nothing 
to  be  done?" 

He  took  his  resolution  on  the  spur  of  the  moment 

"Yes,  thank  heaven!  Your  uncle  has  got  to  find  a 
printing  press,  or  at  least  a  telegraph  wire,  before  he 
can  make  my  discharge  effective.  Before  he  can  do  that, 
or  until  he  does  it,  I'm  going  to  pull  the  throttle  wide 
open  and  race  that  discharge  circular,  if  I  go  to  jail  for 
it,  afterward !  Who  knows  but  I  shall  have  time  to  save 
the  day  for  the  company  after  all?  Good-by,  dearest. 
In  twenty  minutes  I  shall  be  riding  for  the  MacMor- 
roghs'  camp,  and  when  I  get  there — " 

"You  are  going  to  ride  back  ? — alone  ?  Oh,  no,  no !" 
she  protested ;  and  the  clinging  arms  held  him. 

"Why,  Alicia,  girl — see  here:  what  do  you  imagine 
could  happen  to  me  ?  Why,  bless  your  loving  heart,  I've 
been  tramping  and  riding  this  desert  more  or  less  for 
two  years !  What  has  come  over  you  ?" 

"I  don't  know;  but — but — oh,  me!  you  will  think  I 
am  miserably  weak  and  foolish:  but  just  as  you  said 


THE   DEADLOCK  323 

that,  I  seemed  to  see  you  lying  in  the  road  with  your 
horse  standing  over  you — and  you  were — dead !" 

"Nonsense!"  he  comforted.  "I'll  be  back  here  to 
morrow,  alive  and  well;  but  I  mustn't  lose  a  minute 
now.  It's  up  to  me  to  reach  Horse  Creek  before  the 
news  of  the  gold  strike  gets  there.  There'll  be  a  stam 
pede,  with  every  laborer  on  the  line  hoofing  it  for  Copah. 
Good-by,  sweetheart,  and — may  I?"  He  took  her  face 
between  his  hands  and  did  it  anyhow. 

Five  minutes  later  he  was  bargaining  for  a  saddle 
horse  at  the  one  livery  stable  in  the  camp,  offering  and 
paying  the  selling  price  of  the  animal  for  the  two  days' 
hire.  It  was  a  rather  sorry  mount  at  that,  and  when  he 
was  dragging  it  out  into  the  street,  Jack  Benson,  the 
youngest  member  of  his  staff,  rode  up,  that  moment  in 
from  the  tie-camp  above  Cow  Mountain. 

"Don't  dismount,  Jack,"  he  ordered  curtly.  "You're 
just  in  time  to  save  me  eight  or  ten  miles,  when  the 
inches  are  worth  dollars.  Eide  for  the  end-of-track  and 
Frisbie  on  a  dead  run.  Tell  Dick  to  hold  his  men,  if  he 
has  to  do  it  at  the  muzzle  of  a  gun,  and  to  come  on  with 
the  track,  night  and  day.  He'll  have  to  raise  the  pay, 
and  keep  on  raising  it — but  that's  all  right.  It's  an 
order.  Kushit!" 

Benson  nodded,  set  his  horse  at  the  path  leading  up 
to  the  railroad  grade,  and  spurred  up  the  hill.  Ford 
gave  a  final  tug  at  his  saddle  cinches,  put  up  a  leg  and 


324:  EMPIEE   BUILDEKS 

began  to  pick  his  way  down  the  thronged  street  in  the 
opposite  direction. 

Thirty  seconds  afterward  a  man  wearing  the  laced 
trousers  and  broad  bullion-corded  sombrero  of  a  Mexican 
dandy  came  out  of  his  hiding-place  behind  the  door  of 
the  livery  stable  office,  thoughtfully  twirling  the  cylinder 
of  a  drawn  revolver. 

"I  take-a  da  mustang,"  he  said  to  the  boy  who  had 
held  Ford's  horse  during  the  short  interview  with  Ben 
son.  And  when  the  bronco  was  brought  out,  the  Mex 
ican,  like  Ford,  looked  to  the  cinches,  mounted,  and  rode 
down  the  street  leading  to  the  lower  mesa  and  the  river. 


XXIV 

RUIZ  GREGORIO 

He  rode  easily,  as  one  born  to  the  saddle,  the  leathers 
creaking  musically  under  him  to  keep  time  to  the  shuf 
fling  fox-trot  of  the  wiry  little  range  pony.  Once  free 
of  the  mining-camp  and  out  upon  the  mesa,  he  found  a 
corn-husk  wrapper  and  his  bag  of  dry  tobacco  and  deftly 
rolled  a  cigarette,  doing  it  with  one  hand,  cow-boy 
fashion.  When  the  cigarette  was  lighted,  the  horseman 
ahead  was  a  mere  khaki-colored  dot,  rising  and  falling 
in  the  mellowing  distance. 

With  the  eye  of  a  plainsman  he  measured  the  trail's 
length  to  the  broken  hill  range  where  the  Pannikin 
emerges  from  its  final  wrestle  with  the  gorges.  Then 
he  glanced  up  at  the  dull  crimson  spot  in  the  murky 
sky  that  marked  the  sun's  altitude.  There  was  time 
sufficient — and  the  trail  was  long  enough.  He  did  not 
push  his  horse  out  of  the  shuffling  trot.  At  the  portal 
hills  the  horseman  now  disappearing  over  the  rim  of  the 
high  mesa  would  slacken  speed.  In  the  canyon  itself 
a  dog  could  not  go  faster  than  a  walk. 

325 


326  EMPIKE   BUILDERS 

On  the  lower  mesa  the  Mexican  picked  up  the  gallop 
ing  dot  again,  holding  it  in  view  until  it  halted  on  the 
river  bank  a  hundred  yards  below  the  entrance  to  the 
canyon.  Since  the  water  was  low  in  the  ford,  the  river 
bank  hid  the  crossing,  and  the  Mexican  drew  rein  and 
waited  for  the  dot  to  reappear  on  the  opposite  shore. 

A  slow  minute  was  lost;  then  a  second  and  a  third. 
The  man  in  the  corded  sombrero  and  laced  buckskins 
touched  his  horse's  flank  with  a  spur  and  crept  forward 
at  a  walk,  keeping  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  point  where 
the  quarry  ought  to  come  in  sight  again.  When  three 
more  minutes  passed  and  the  farther  shore  was  still  a 
deserted  blank,  the  Mexican  dug  both  rowels  into  his 
mustang  and  galloped  down  to  the  river,  muttering 
curses  in  the  patois  of  his  native  Sonora. 

Apparently  the  closing  in  had  been  delayed  too  long. 
There  were  fresh  hoof -prints  in  the  marl  of  the  hither 
approach  to  the  shallow  ford,  but  none  to  match  them 
on  the  farther  side.  The  Mexican  crossed  hastily  and 
searched  for  the  outcoming  hoof-marks.  The  rocky  bar 
which  formed  the  northern  bank  of  the  stream  told  him 
nothing. 

Now  it  is  only  in  the  imagination  of  the  word- 
smith  that  the  villain  in  the  play  is  gifted  with  super-1 
natural  powers  of  discernment.  Ruiz  Gregorio  Maria  y 
Alvarez  Mattacheco,  familiarly  and  less  cumbrously 
known  as  "Mexican  George,"  was  a  mere  murderer,  with 


RUIZ    GREGOEIO  327 

a  quick  eye  for  gun-sights  and  a  ready  and  itching  trig 
ger  finger.  But  he  was  no  Vidocq,  to  know  by  instinct 
which  of  the  two  trails,  the  canyon  passage  or  the  longer 
route  over  the  hills,  Ford  had  chosen. 

Having  two  guesses  he  made  the  wrong  one  first,  urg 
ing  his  mustang  toward  the  canyon  trail.  A  stumbling 
half-mile  up  the  narrow  cleft  of  the  river's  path  reveal 
ing  nothing,  he  began  to  reconsider.  Drawing  a  second 
blank  of  the  same  dimensions,  he  turned  back  to  the 
ford  and  tried  the  hill  trail.  At  the  end  of  the  first  hun 
dred  yards  on  the  new  scent  he  came  again  upon  the 
fresh  hoof-prints,  and  took  off  the  brow-cramping  hat 
to  swear  the  easier. 

Two  courses  were  now  open  to  him;  to  press  hard 
upon  the  roundabout  hill  trail  in  the  hope  of  overtaking 
the  engineer  before  he  could  reach  the  Horse  Creek 
camp,  or  to  pass  by  the  shorter  route  to  the  upper  ford 
to  head  him  off  at  the  river  crossing.  The  Mexican  gave 
another  glance  at  the  dull  red  spot  in  the  western  sky 
and  played  for  safety.  The  waylaying  alternative  com 
mended  itself  on  several  counts.  The  canyon  trail  was 
the  shorter  and  it  could  be  traversed  leisurely  and  in 
daylight.  Pressing  his  livery  hack  as  he  could,  Ford 
would  scarcely  reach  the  crossing  at  the  mouth  of  Horse 
Creek  before  dusk.  Moreover,  it  would  be  easier  to  wait 
and  to  smoke  than  to  chase  the  quarry  over  the  hills, 
wearing  one's  pinto  to  the  bone. 


328  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

Ruiz  Gregorio  Maria  set  his  horse  once  more  at  the 
task  of  picking  a  path  among  the  canyon  boulders,  rid 
ing  loosely  in  the  saddle,  first  in  one  stirrup  and  then 
in  the  other,  and  smoking  an  unbroken  succession  of 
the  corn-husk  cigarettes. 

One  small  cloud  flecked  the  sky  of  satisfaction.  His 
instructions  had  been  explicit.  If  Ford  should  resign, 
quit,  wash  his  hands  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern,  he 
might  be  suffered  to  escape.  If  not — there  was  only  one 
condition  attached  to  the  alternative:  what  was  done 
must  be  done  neatly,  with  despatch,  and  at  a  sufficient 
distance  from  any  of  the  MacMorrogh  camps  to  avert 
even  the  shadow  of  suspicion. 

Now  the  upper  crossing  of  waylayings  was  within 
a  stone's  throw  of  the  end-of-track  yards;  nay,  within 
an  amateur's  pistol-shot  of  the  commissary  buildings. 
But  Ruiz  Gregorio,  weighing  all  the  possibilities,  found 
them  elastic  enough  to  serve  the  purpose.  A  well-calcu 
lated  shot  from  behind  a  sheltering  boulder,  the  heav 
ing  of  the  body  into  the  swift  torrent  of  the  Pannikin, 
and  the  thing  was  done.  What  damning  evidence  might 
afterward  come  to  the  light  of  day,  if,  indeed,  it  should 
ever  come  to  light,  would  be  fished  out  of  the  stream 
far  enough  from  any  of  the  MacMorrogh  camps. 

Thus  Ruiz  Gregorio  Maria  y  Alvarez,  lolling  lazily 
in  his  saddle  while  the  hard-breathing  mustang  picked 
a  toilsome  path  among  the  strewn  boulders  and  through 


KUIZ   GREGORIO  329 

the  sliding  shale  beds.  He  went  even  further :  an  alibi 
might  not  be  needful,  but  it  would  be  easy  to  provide 
one.  Young  Jack  Benson,  if  no  other,  would  know  that 
Ford  had  taken  one  of  the  shorter  trails  from  Copah  to 
the  camp  at  Horse  Creek.  Bueno!  He,  Euiz  Gregorio, 
could  slip  across  the  river  in  the  dusk  when  the  thing 
was  done,  skirt  the  headquarters  camp  unseen,  and  pre 
sent  himself  a  little  later  at  Seiior  Frisbie's  camp  of  the 
track-layers,  coming,  as  it  were,  direct  from  Copah,  al 
most  upon  the  heels  of  Seiior  Benson.  After  that,  who 
could  connect  him  with  the  dead  body  of  a  man  fished 
out  of  a  river  twenty,  fifty,  a  hundred  miles  away  ? 

There  was  a  weak  link  in  the  chain.  Ruiz  Gregorio's 
child-like  plot  turned  upon  one  pivot  of  hazard — hazard 
most  likely  to  be  ignored  by  so  good  a  marksman  as  the 
"man-killer."  One  shot  he  might  permit  himself,  with 
little  danger  of  drawing  a  crowd  from  the  mess  tent  and 
the  sleeping  shanties  in  the  Horse  Creek  camp.  Two 
would  bring  the  men  to  their  doors.  Any  greater  number 
would  be  taken  as  the  signal  of  a  free  fight  needing 
spectators.  Hence  the  first  shot  must  suffice. 

The  Mexican  bore  this  in  mind  when,  arriving  at  his 
post  opposite  the  camp  in  the  early  dusk,  he  chose  his 
ambushing  boulder  so  near  the  descending  hill  trail 
that  a  stout  club  might  have  teen  substituted  for  the 
pistol.  The  weather  promise  was  for  a  starless  night,  but 
the  electric  arc-lights  were  already  scintillating  at  their 


330.  EMPIEE   BUILDERS 

mastheads  in  the  headquarters  railroad  yard  across  the 
Pannikin.  Later,  when  the  daylight  was  quite  gone  and 
the  electrics  were  hollowing  out  a  bowl  of  stark  white 
ness  in  the  night,  Ruiz  Gregorio  wished  he  had  chosen 
otherwise.  The  camp  lights  shone  full  upon  him  and  on 
the  mustang  standing  witK  drooped  head  at  his  elbow, 
and  the  trail  on  the  other  side  pf  the  boulder  was  in 
shadow. 

He  was  about  to  take  the  risk  of  moving  farther  up 
the  hill-path  to  a  less  exposed  lurking  place,  was  hesi 
tating  only  because  his  indolent  soul  rebelled  at  the 
thought  of  having  to  drag  Ford's  body  so  many  added 
steps  to  its  burial  in  the  river,  when  the  clink  of  shod 
hoofs  upon  stone  warned  him  that  the  time  for  scene- 
shifting  had  passed.  Pushing  the  mustang  out  of  the 
line  of  sight  from  the  trail,  he  flattened  himself  against 
the  great  rock  and  waited. 

Ford  rode  down  the  last  declivity  cautiously,  for  his 
horse's  sake.  The  trail  came  out  of  the  hills  abruptly, 
dropping  into  the  rock-strewn  river  valley  within  hail 
ing  distance  of  the  camp.  Well  within  the  sweep  of  the 
masthead  lights  across  the  stream,  the  boulder-strewn 
flat  was  as  light  as  day,  save  where  the  sentinel  rocks 
flung  their  shadows;  and  promptly  at  the  first  facing 
of  the  bright  electrics,  Ford's  horse  stumbled  aside  from 
the  path  and  began  to  take  short  cuts  between  the  thick- 
standing  boulders  for  the  river.  This  was  how  the  Mex- 


EUIZ   GREGORIO  331 

lean,  instead  of  having  his  victim  at  a  complete  dis 
advantage,  found  himself  suddenly  uncovered  by  the 
flank,  exposed,  recognized,  and  hailed  in  no  uncertain 
tones. 

"Hello,  Mattacheco !  what  are  you  doing  here  ?"  Ford 
had  a  flash-light  picture  of  the  horse  standing  with  his 
muzzle  to  the  ground ;  of  the  man  flattened  against  the 
rock.  Then  he  saw  the  dull  gleam  of  the  lights  upon 
blued  metal.  "You  devil !"  he  shouted ;  and  unarmed 
as  he  was,  spurred  his  tired  beast  at  the  assassin. 

Here,  then,  was  the  weak  link  in  Ruiz  Gregorio's 
chain  twisted  to  the  breaking  point  at  the  very  outset. 
Instead  of  taking  a  deliberate  pot-shot  at  an  unsus 
pecting  victim,  he  was  obliged  to  face  about,  to  fire 
hastily  at  a  charging  enemy,  and  to  spring  nimbly  aside 
to  save  himself  from  being  ridden  down.  The  saving 
jump  was  an  awkward  one :  it  brought  him  into  breath 
taking  collision  with  the  upjerking  head  of  the  mustang. 
When  he  had  recovered  his  feet  and  his  presence  of 
mind,  the  charging  whirlwind  had  dashed  through  the 
shallows  of  the  Pannikin,  and  a  riderless  horse  was  clat 
tering  across  the  tracks  in  the  railroad  yard. 

The  Mexican  waited  prudently  to  see  what  the  camp 
would  say  to  the  single  shot.  It  said  nothing;  it  might 
have  been  deserted  for  all  the  indications  there  were  of 
life  in  it.  Ruiz  Gregorio  snapped  the  empty  shell  from 
his  weapon,  replacing  it  with  a  loaded  one,  and  mounted 


332  EMPIEE    BUILDEES 

and  rode  slowly  through  the  ford.  The  riderless  horse 
disappearing  across  the  tracks  gave  him  good  hope  that 
the  hasty  shot  had  accomplished  all  that  a  deliberate  one 
might  have. 

There  was  no  dead  man  tumbled  in  a  heap  in  the  rail 
road  yard,  as  he  had  hoped  to  find.  Silence,  the  silence 
of  desertion,  brooded  over  the  masthead  arcs.  Painfully 
the  Mexican  searched,  at  the  verge  of  the  river,  in  the 
black  shadows  cast  by  the  crowding  material  cars.  Fi 
nally  he  crossed  over  to  the  straggling  street  of  the  camp, 
walking  now  and  leading  the  spent  mustang.  Silence 
here,  too,  broken  only  by  the  sputtering  sizzle  of  the 
electrics.  The  huge  mess  tent  was  dark;  there  were  no 
lights,  save  in  the  closed  commissary  and  in  the  presi 
dent's  car:  no  lights,  and  not  a  man  of  the  camp's 
crowding  labor  army  to  be  seen. 

At  a  less  strenuous  moment  the  man-killer  would 
have  been  puzzled  by  the  unusual  stillness  and  the  air 
of  desertion.  As  it  was,  he  was  alertly  probing  the  car- 
flung  shadows.  The  engineer,  if  only  wounded,  would 
doubtless  try  to  hide  in  the  shadows  in  the  railroad  yard. 

The  Mexican  left  his  horse  in  the  camp  street  and 
made  an  instant  search  between  and  under  the  material 
cars,  coming  out  now  and  again  to  stare  suspiciously  at 
the  president's  private  car,  standing  alone  on  the  siding 
directly  opposite  the  commissary.  The  Nadia  was  occu 
pied.  It  was  lighted  within,  and  the  window  shades 


RUIZ    GKEGORIO  333 

were  drawn  down.  Ruiz  Gregorio  could  never  get  far 
from  the  lighted  car  without  being  irresistibly  drawn 
back  to  it,  and  finally  he  darted  back  in  time  to  see  a 
man  rise  up  out  of  the  shadow  of  the  nearest  box-car, 
spring  to  the  platform  of  the  Nadia  and  kick  lustily  at 
the  locked  door.  The  door  was  opened  immediately  by 
some  one  within,  and  the  fugitive  plunged  to  cover — but 
not  before  the  Mexican's  revolver  had  barked  five  times 
with  the  rapid  staccato  of  a  machine  gun. 

When  Ruiz  Gregorio,  dropping  the  smoking  weapon 
into  its  holster,  would  have  mounted  to  put  into  instant 
action  the  plan  of  the  well-considered  alibi,  a  barrel- 
bodied  figure  launched  itself  from  the  commissary 
porch,  and  a  vigorous  hand  dragged  horse  and  man  into 
the  shadow  of  the  stables. 

"Off  wid  you  now,  you  blunderin'  dago  divvle!" 
gritted  the  MacMorrogh  savagely.  "It's  all  av  our 
necks  ye've  put  into  a  rope,  this  time,  damn  you !" 

The  Mexican  had  dismounted  and  was  calmly  reload 
ing  his  pistol. 

"You  t'ink-a  he's  not-a  sufficiently  kill?  I  go  over 
to  da  car  and  bring-a  you  da  proof,  si  ?" 

"You'll  come  wid  me,"  raved  the  big  contractor. 
"'Tis  out  av  your  clumsy  hands,  now,  ye  black-hearted 
blunderin'  cross  betune  a  Digger  Indian  and  a  Mexican 
naygur!  Come  on,  I  say!" 

The  back  room  of  the  commissary  to  which  the  Mac- 


334  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

Morrogh  led  the  way  held  three  men;  Eckstein,  and  the 
two  younger  members  of  the  contracting  firm.  They  had 
heard  the  fusillade  in  the  camp  street  and  were  waiting 
for  news.  Brian  MacMorrogh  gave  it,  garnished  with 
many  oaths. 

"The  pin-brained  omadhaun  av  a  Mexican  has 
twishted  a  rope  for  all  av  us  !  He's  let  Ford  come  back, 
alive;  let  him  get  to  the  very  dure  av  the  prisident's 
car !  Then,  begorra !  he  must  nades  show  himself  under 
the  electhrics  and  open  fire  on  the  man  who  was  kicking 
at  the  dure  and  looking  sthraight  at  him  I" 

Eckstein  asked  a  single  question. 

"Did  he  get  him  ?  If  he's  dead  he  can't  very  well  tell 
who  shot  him." 

"That's  the  hell  av  it!"  raged  the  big  man.  "Who's 
to  know?" 

Eckstein  spat  out  the  extinct  cigar  stump  he  was 
chewing. 

"We  are  to  know — beyond  a  question  of  doubt,  this 
time.  Who  is  in  the  Nadia,  besides  Ford  ?" 

"The  two  naygurs." 

"No  one  else?" 

MacMorrogh  shook  his  head.   "No  wan." 

"You  are  sure  Mr.  Adair  and  Brissac  are  out  of  the 
way?" 

"They  got  Gallagher  to  push  them  up  to  Frisbie's 
track  camp  in  Misther  North's  car  an  hour  before  dark." 


EUIZ   GKEGORIO  335 

"None  of  your  men  are  likely  to  drift  in  from  the 
other  way  up  the  line  ?" 

"Not  unless  somebody  carries  the  news  av  the  gold 
sthrike — and  there's  nobody  going  that  way  to  carry  it. 
The  camp's  empty  but  for  us." 

Eckstein  rose  and  buttoned  his  coat. 

"You  have  held  your  own  strikers — the  men  you  can 
depend  upon :  how  many  do  we  count,  all  told  ?" 

"Thirteen,  counting  the  five  av  us  here,  and  the  felly 
that  runs  the  electhric  light  plant." 

"H'm;  it's  a  hell  of  a  risk:  thirteen  men  knowing 
what  only  one  should  know — and  what  that  one  should 
hurry  to  forget.  But  your  butter-fingered  Mexican  has 
left  us  no  choice.  Ford  knows  enough  now  to  send  some 
of  us  over  the  road  for  life.  If  he  got  into  that  car  alive, 
he  must  never  come  out  of  it  alive." 

Brian  MacMorrogh  had  unlocked  a  cupboard  in  the 
corner  of  the  room.  It  was  a  well-filled  gun-rack,  and 
he  was  passing  the  Winchesters  out  to  his  brothers. 

"  Tis  so,"  he  said  briefly.  Then :  "There's  the  two 
naygurs  in  the  car :  what  av  thim,  Misther  Eckstein  ?" 

Eckstein  took  one  of  the  guns  and  emptied  the  maga 
zine  to  make  sure  of  the  loading. 

"We  are  thirteen  to  one;  the  negroes  don't  count," 
he  replied  coldly.  "Call  in  your  men  and  we'll  go  and 
do  what's  got  to  be  done." 


XXV 

THE  SIEGE  OF  THE   NADIA 

With  a  horse  that  could  have  been  handled  Ford 
would  not  have  run  away  when  the  charge  upon  the 
Mexican  failed  of  its  purpose.  So  far  from  it,  he  tried 
to  wheel  and  charge  again  while  the  man  was  reeling 
from  his  collision  with  the  rearing  mustang. 

But  the  bronco  from  the  Copah  stable,  with  the  flash 
and  crash  of  the  pistol-shot  to  madden  it,  took  the  bit 
between  its  teeth  and  bolted— safely  through  the  shal 
lows  of  the  stream  crossing  and  up  to  the  level  of  the 
railroad  yard  beyond,  but  swerving  aside  at  the  first 
of  the  car  shadows  to  fling  its  -rider  out  of  the  saddle. 
Ford  gathered  himself  quickly  and  rolled  under  a  car. 
His  right  arm  had  no  feeling  in  it,  whether  from  the 
shot  or  the  fall  he  could  not  determine. 

The  numbness  had  become  a  prickling  agony  when  he 
heard  the  Mexican  splashing  through  the  river  to  be 
gin  his  search.  Ford's  field  of  vision  was  limited  by  the 
car  trucks,  but  he  kept  the  man  in  sight  as  he  could.  It 

336 


THE    SIEGE    OF    THE    NADIA  337 

filled  him  with  sudden  and  fiery  rage  to  be  hunted  thus 
like  a  defenseless  animal,  and  more  than  once  he  was 
tempted  to  make  a  dash  for  the  engineers'  quarters  on 
the  hillside  above  the  commissary — a  rifle  being  the 
thing  for  which  he  hungered  and  thirsted. 

But  to  show  himself  under  the  lights  was  to  invite 
the  fate  he  had  so  narrowly  escaped.  He  knew  Mat- 
tacheco's  skill  as  a  marksman:  the  Mexican  would  not 
be  rattled  twice  in  the  same  half-hour.  Ford  gripped 
the  benumbed  arm  in  impotent  writhings. 

"Now,  by  recognizing  him,  I've  fixed  it  so  that  he  is 
obliged  to  kill  me/'  he  muttered.  "It's  my  life,  or  his 
neck  for  a  halter,  and  he  knows  it.  The  blood-thirsty 
devil !  If  I  could  only  get  to  Brissac's  bunk-shanty  and 
lay  my  hands  on  a  gun  ..." 

There  seemed  to  be  no  chance  of  doing  that  most  de 
sirable  thing.  The  Mexican  was  now  afoot  and  coursing 
the  railroad  yard  like  a  baffled  hound.  Ford  saw  that 
it  was  only  a  question  of  minutes  until  his  impromptu 
hiding-place  would  be  discovered,  and  he  began  to  look 
for  another.  The  Nadia  was  but  a  short  distance  away, 
and  the  lighted  deck  transoms  beckoned  him. 

It  was  instinct  rather  than  intention  that  made  him 
duck  and  plunge  headlong  through  the  suddenly  opened 
door  of  the  private  car  at  the  glimpse  of  his  pursuer 
standing  beside  his  horse  in  the  open  camp  street.  This 
was  why  the  pistol  barked  harmlessly.  Springing  to  his 


338  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

feet,  and  leaving  the  frightened  negro  who  had  admitted 
him  trying  to  barricade  the  door  with  cushions  from 
the  smoking-room  seats,  Ford  burst  into  the  lighted  cen 
tral  compartment.  ' 

It  was  not  empty,  as  he  had  expected  to  find  it.  Two 
men,  startled  by  the  shots  and  the  crash  of  breaking 
glass,  were  prepared  to  grapple  him.  It  was  Brissac,  the 
invalided  assistant,  who  cried,  "Hold  on,  Mr.  Adair — 
it's  Ford,  and  he's  hurt !" 

Ford  met  the  involuntary  rush,  gathered  the  two  in 
his  uncrippled  arm  and  dragged  them  to  the  floor. 

"That's  in  case  my  assassin  takes  a  notion  to  turn 
loose  on  the  windows,"  he  panted.  Then  he  gasped  out 
his  story  while  Brissac  got  the  aching  right  arm  out  of 
its  sleeve  and  looked  for  the  injury. 

Adair  listened  to  the  story  of  the  attempted  murder 
awe-struck,  as  one  from  the  civilized  East  had  a  right 
to  be. 

"By  Jove !"  he  commented ;  "I  thought  I  had  bumped 
into  all  the  different  varieties  of  deviltry  since  I  left 
Denver  yesterday  morning,  but  this  tops  'em.  Actually 
tried  to  kill  you  in  cold  blood  ?  But  what  for,  Stuart  ? — 
for  heaven's  sake,  what  for  ?" 

"Because  he  was  hired  to:  because  his  masters,  the 
MacMorroghs,  and  their  master,  North,  have  staked 
their  roll  on  this  last  turn  of  the  cards.  I  know  too 
much,  Adair.  The  president  was  sent  over  here  to  get 


THE    SIEGE    OF    THE    NADIA  339 

rid  of  me.  That  failing,  word  was  passed  down  the  line 
that  I  was  to  be  effaced.  A  few  hours  ago  this  Mexican 
overheard  me  telling  your  sister  what  I  proposed  to  do 
to  North  and  the  MacMorroghs.  That's  why  he — Ouch ! 
Eoy ;  that  is  my  arm  you're  trying  to  twist  out  of  joint, 
man!" 

"It's  all  right,"  laughed  the  Louisianian;  "it  is  only 
a  crazy-bone  bump  that  you  got  when  the  bronc'  threw 
you.  Say,  Ford;  I  thought  you  claimed  to  know  how 
to  ride  a  horse !" 

Adair  was  feeling  in  his  pockets  for  the  inevitable 
cigarette  case. 

"What  he  overheard  you  telling  Alicia?"  he  mused. 
"I'm  evidently  two  or  three  chapters  behind.  But  no 
matter ;  this  is  the  now ;  the  very  immediate  now.  Will 
your  assassin  keep  on  feeling  for  you  ?" 

Ford  shook  his  head.  "Not  any  more  just  at  present, 
I  guess.  He  has  waited  too  long.  That  fusillade  of  his 
will  have  turned  the  entire  camp  out  by  this  time,  and 
the  Macs  don't  want  any  inconvenient  witnesses." 

"Witnesses  ?"  echoed  Adair.  "Then  you  don't  know — 
Say,  Stuart;  there  isn't  a  white  man  in  this  camp  be 
sides  us  three — unless  you  count  the  MacMorroghs  and 
their  commissary  garrison  as  white  men.  News  of  the 
great  gold  strike  got  here  about  three  o'clock,  and  every 
laborer  within  hearing  of  it  shouldered  pick  and  shovel 
and  lined  out  up  the  new  track  for  Copah." 


340  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"What  I"  shouted  Ford.  "And  these  bash-dashed  Mac- 
Morroghs  didn't  try  to  hold  them  ?" 

"I  don't  know  about  that.  I  had  Mr.  Brissac,  here, 
over  in  the  '01' — I  came  across  the  mountain  in  North's 
car,  you  know — dosing  him  with  things  out  of  Doctor 
Van  Bruce's  traveling  case,  and  trying  to  get  him  in 
shape  to  show  me  the  way  to  Copah.  After  the  stampede, 
which  took  all  the  four-legged  horses  as  well  as  the  two- 
legged  asses,  I  persuaded  your  man  Gallagher  to  hitch 
his  engine  to  our  car  to  drag  us  up  to  Frisbie's  camp  at 
the  front.  I  thought  Frisbie  would  probably  be  in  com 
munication  with  you.  Gallagher's  intentions  were  good, 
but  about  three  miles  up  Horse  Creek  he  ditched  the 
car  so  thoroughly  that  we  couldn't  inhabit  it;  so  we 
got  out  and  walked  back." 

"All  of  which  brings  on  more  talk,"  said  Ford  gravely. 
"From  what  you  say,  I  gather  that  the  MacMorroghs 
are  still  here.  Did  any  one  see  you  come  back  ?" 

"I  don't  know.  It  was  after  dark  when  we  straggled 
in,  and  we  didn't  ring  any  bells  or  blow  any  whistles." 

Ford  stood  up. 

"Does  either  one  of  you  happen  to  have  anything  big 
ger  than  a  pocket-knife  in  the  way  of  a  weapon?"  he 
asked. 

"Why?  what  are  you  going  to  do?"  Adair  demanded. 

"I  am  going  to  separate  you  two  from  my  highly  dan 
gerous  presence,"  said  Ford  definitely.  "The  MacMor- 


THE    SIEGE    OP    THE    NADIA          341 

roghs'  outfit  of  a  dozen  or  fifteen  cutthroat  scoundrels, 
captained,  for  the  moment,  by  Eckstein,  North's  right- 
hand  man,  are  doubtless  just  across  the  way  in  the  back 
room  of  the  commissary.  You  say  the  camp  is  otherwise 
deserted:  the  MacMorroghs  don't  know  that  you  are 
here ;  and  they  do  know  that  I  am,  dead  or  alive.  More 
over,  Mattacheco  has  doubtless  told  them  by  this  timo 
that  I  saw  and  recognized  him.  Wherefore,  it's  up  to 
them  to  see  that  I  never  get  a  chance  to  go  before  a 
grand  jury." 

"You  sit  down  on  the  floor,"  said  Adair.  He  had 
found  a  cigarette  and  was  crimping  the  end  of  it.  "Have 
you  a  fraction  of  an  idea  that  we  are  going  to  allow 
you  to  make  a  Jonah  of  yourself  for  us?  Sit  down,  I 
say !  Who's  got  a  gun  ?" 

Brissac  had  crept  to  a  window  and  was  reconnoiter- 
ing  the  deserted  camp  street  and  the  commissary 
through  a  peephole  in  the  drawn  shade.  As  Adair  spoke, 
he  sprang  back,  tripped  Ford  and  fell  with  him,  cry 
ing: 

"Down !  both  of  you !" 

At  the  cry  there  was  a  shot  from  without,  and  a  win 
dow  on  the  exposed  side  of  the  Nadia  fell  in  shivers. 
There  were  yells  of  terror  from  the  cook's  pantry,  and 
the  two  negroes  came  crawling  through  the  side  vesti 
bule,  their  eyes  like  saucers  and  their  teeth  chattering. 
Ford  jumped  up  and  turned  off  the  Pintsch  lights ;  and 


342  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

he  was  barely  down  again  when  another  shot  broke  a 
second  window. 

"Wouldn't  that  jolt  you?"  said  Adair.  "They  are 
feeling  for  you  with  both  hands.  What  a  heaven's  pity 
it  is  that  we  haven't  so  much  as  a  potato  popgun  among 
us  to  talk  back  with.  What  did  you  see,  Mr.  Brissac  ?" 

"A  crowd  of  them  bunched  on  the  commissary  porch. 
One  of  them  was  sighting  a  Winchester  at  the  car  when 
I  got  busy." 

Adair  was  again  lamenting  the  lack  of  arms  when  the 
negro  porter  produced  a  pocket  bulldog  pistol  of  the 
cheap  and  uncertain  sort.  "Y-y-y-yah  you  is,  Mistuh 
Charles,"  he  stuttered. 

"Ah,  Williams — concealed  weapons?  That  is  fifty 
dollars  fine  in  your  native  Tennessee,  isn't  it?"  Then 
to  Brissac :  "Please  go  to  the  farther  window  and  mark 
down  for  me,  Mr.  Brissac.  I  don't  like  to  have  those 
fellows  do  all  the  bluffing." 

While  the  assistant  was  complying,  a  third  bullet 
from  the  commissary  porch  tore  high  through  the  car, 
smashing  one  of  the  gas  globes.  Adair  crawled  to  a 
broken  window  and  the  cheap  revolver  roared  like  an 
overloaded  musket. 

"Good  shot!"  said  Brissac,  from  his  marking  post. 
"You  got  one  of  them:  he's  down  and  they're  dragging 
him  inside.  Now  they  have  all  ducked  to  cover." 

"That  settles  any  notion  of  a  palaver  and  the  pipe  of 


THE    SIEGE    OF   THE    NADIA          343 

peace,  I  guess,"  said  Adair,  as  indifferently  as  if  he  had 
just  brought  down  a  clay  pigeon.  "Prophesy,  Stuart: 
what  comes  next  ?" 

Ford  shook  his  head. 

"They  can't  quit  now  till  they  are  sure  I  am  perma 
nently  obliterated;  they  have  gone  too  far.  They'll 
credit  me  with  that  shot  of  yours,  and  they  will  take  it 
as  a  pretty  emphatic  proof  that  I  still  live.  Hence, 
more  war." 

"Well,  what  do  we  do?  You  are  the  captain." 

"Picket  the  car  and  keep  a  sharp  lookout  for  the  next 
move.  Brissac,  you  take  the  forward  end,  and  I'll  take 
the  rear  platform.  Adair,  post  your  Africans  in  here 
where  they'll  do  the  most  good,  and  see  that  they  don't 
go  to  sleep  on  their  jobs." 

The  disposition  of  forces  was  quickly  made,  after 
which  suspense  set  in.  Silence  and  the  solitude  of  the 
deserted  camp  reigned  unbroken ;  yet  the  watchers  knew 
that  the  shadows  held  determined  enemies,  alertly  be 
sieging  the  private  car.  To  prove  it,  Adair  pulled  down 
a  portiere,  gave  it  bulk  with  a  stuffing  of  berth  pillows, 
and  dropped  the  bundle  from  one  of  the  shattered  win 
dows.  Three  jets  of  fire  belched  from  the  nearest  shadow, 
and  the  dummy  was  riddled.  Adair  fired  at  one  of  the 
flashes,  resting  the  short-barreled  pistol  across  the  win 
dow  ledge,  and  the  retaliatory  shot  brought  Ford  hurry 
ing  in  from  his  post. 


344  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

"For  heaven's  sake,  don't  waste  your  ammunition!" 
he  whispered.  "One  of  them  has  gone  up  to  the  powder- 
house  after  dynamite,  I  heard  the  creaking  of  the  iron 
door." 

Adair  whistled  softly.  "Dynamite !  That  will  bring 
things  to  a  focus  beautifully,  won't  it  ?  When  they  have 
blown  us  up,  I  wonder  how  they  will  account  to  Uncle 
Sidney  for  the  loss  of  his  car  ?" 

Brissac  had  come  running  in  at  the  sound  of  the  fir 
ing.  He  missed  the  grim  humor  in  Adair's  query. 

"Car,  nothing!"  he  retorted.  "Better  say  the  entire 
camp  and  everything  in  it!  There's  a  whole  box-car 
load  of  dynamite  and  caps  out  here  in  the  yard — sub 
contractors'  supplies  waiting  for  the  freighters'  teams 
from  the  west  end.  If  they  smash  us,  the  chances  are 
ten  to  one  that  there'll  be  a  sympathetic  explosion  out 
yonder  in  the  yard  somewhere  that  will  leave  nothing 
but  a  hole  in  the  ground !" 

"No,"  said  Ford.  "I  gave  orders  myself  to  have  that 
car  set  down  below  the  junction  when  the  Nadia  came 
in." 

"So  you  did;  and  so  it  was,"  Brissac  cut  in.  "But 
afterward  it  got  mixed  in  the  shifting,  and  it's  back  in 
the  yard — I  don't  know  just  where." 

Adair  turned  to  the  cowering  porter. 

"Have  you  any  more  cartridges  for  this  cannon  of 
yours,  Williams  ?"  he  asked. 


THE    SIEGE    OF    THE    NADIA  345 

"N-n-no,  sah." 

"Then  we  have  three  more  chances  in  the  hat.  Much 
obliged  for  the  dynamite  hint,  Stuart.  I'll  herd  these 
three  cartridges  pretty  carefully.  Back  to  your  sentry- 
boxes,  you  two,  and  make  a  noise  if  you  need  the  artil 
lery." 

Another  interval  of  suspense  followed,  thickly  scored 
with  pricklings  of  anxiety  for  the  besieged.  Then  an  at 
tempt  was  made  from  the  rear.  Ford  saw  a  dodging 
shadow  working  its  way  from  car  to  car  in  the  yard  and 
signaled  softly  to  Adair. 

"Hold  low  on  him,"  he  cautioned,  when  the  New 
Yorker  was  at  his  elbow,  "those  cheap  guns  jump  like 
a  scared  cow-pony/'  Then  he  added:  "And  pray  God 
you  don't  hit  what  he's  carrying." 

Adair  held  low  and  bided  his  time.  There  was  an 
other  musket-like  roar,  and  an  instant  though  harmless 
reply  from  two  rifles  on  the  other  side  of  the  Nadia. 
But  the  dodging  shadow  was  no  longer  advancing. 

"I'vo  stopped  him  for  the  time  being,  anyhow,"  said 
Adair,  exulting  like  a  boy.  "If  we  only  had  a  decent 
weapon  we  could  get  them  all,  one  at  a  time." 

"This  was  crude,"  Ford  commented.  "Eckstein  will 
think  up  something  better  for  the  next  attempt." 

It  was  a  prophecy  which  found  its  fulfilment  after 
another  sweating  interval  of  watchfulness.  This  time  it 
was  Brissac  who  made  the  discovery,  from  the  forward 


346  EMPIEE    BUILDEES 

end  of  the  Nadia.  The  nearest  of  the  material  cars  was 
a  box,  lying  broadside  to  the  private  car  on  the  next 
side-track  but  one.  From  behind  the  trucks  of  the  box 
car  a  slender  pole,  headed  with  what  appeared  to  be  an 
empty  oyster  tin,  and  trailing  a  black  line  of  fuse,  was 
projecting  itself  along  the  ground  by  slow  inchings, 
creeping  across  the  lighted  space  between  the  two  cars. 
Brissac  promptly  gave  the  alarm. 

"This  is  where  we  lose  out,  pointedly  and  definitely," 
predicted  Adair,  still  cheerful.  "Anybody  want  to  try 
a  run  for  it  ?" 

It  was  Ford  who  thought  of  the  two  negroes. 

"Tell  them,  Boy,"  he  said  to  Brissac.  "Perhaps  they 
would  rather  risk  the  rifles." 

Brissac  crept  back  to  the  central  compartment,  and 
the  two  watchers  marked  the  progress  of  the  inching 
pole,  with  its  dynamite  head  and  the  ominous  black 
thread  of  communication  trailing  like  a  grotesque  horn 
behind  it.  At  the  crossing  of  the  intervening  track  it 
paused,  moving  back  and  forth  along  the  steel  like  a 
living  thing  seeking  a  passage.  Finally  the  metallic 
head  of  it  appeared  above  the  rail,  hesitated,  and  came 
on  slowly.  At  that  moment  there  was  a  shout,  and  the 
two  negroes,  hands  held  high,  tumbled  from  the  oppo 
site  step  of  the  Nadia  and  ran  toward  the  commissary 
stables.  Three  shots  bit  into  the  silence,  and  the  fat  cook 
ran  on,  stumbling  and  shrieking.  But  the  man  Williams 


THE    SIEGE    OF   THE   NADIA          347 

stopped  short  and  fell  on  Lis  face,  rolling  over  a  mo 
ment  later  to  lie  with  arms  and  legs  outspread. 

"God !"  said  Ford,  between  his  set  teeth ;  "they  saw 
who  they  were — they  couldn't  help  seeing!  And  there 
was  no  excuse  for  killing  those  poor  devils  I" 

But  there  was  no  time  for  reprisals,  if  any  could  have 
been  made.  When  Brissac  rejoined  the  two  in  the  for 
ward  vestibule,  the  stiff-bodied  snake  with  its  tin  head 
and  trailing  horn  was  crossing  the  second  rail  of  the  in 
tervening  siding. 

"We've  got  to  think  pretty  swiftly,"  suggested  Adair, 
still  cool  and  unruffled.  "I  might  be  able  to  hit  that  tin 
thing  at  this  short  distance,  but  I  suppose  that  would 
only  precipitate  matters.  What  do  you  say?" 

Ford  could  not  say,  and  Brissac  seemed  to  have  be 
come  suddenly  petrified  with  horror.  He  was  staring  at 
the  lettering  on  the  box-car  opposite — the  one  under 
whose  trucks  the  dynamiters  were  hiding. 

"Look !"  he  gasped ;  "it's  the  car  of  explosives,  and  they 
don't  know  it !"  Then  he  darted  back  into  the  Nadia's 
kitchen,  returning  quickly  with  a  huge  carving-knife 
rummaged  from  the  pantry  shelves.  "Stand  back  and 
give  me  room,"  he  begged;  and  they  saw  him  lean  out 
to  send  the  carving-knife  whistling  through  the  air: 
saw  it  sever  the  head  from  the  stiff-bodied  snake — the 
head  and  the  trailing  horn  as  well. 

"Good  man!"  applauded  Adair,  dragging  the  assist- 


348  EMPIEE   BUILDERS 

ant  engineer  back  to  safety  before  any  of  the  sharp 
shooters  had  marked  him  down.  "Where  did  you  learn 
that  trick?" 

"It  is  my  one  little  accomplishment,"  confessed  the 
Louisianian.  "An  old  Chickasaw  chief  taught  me  when 
I  was  a  boy  in  the  bayou  country." 

The  peril  was  over  for  the  moment.  The  severed  pole 
was  withdrawn,  and  for  what  seemed  like  an  endless  in 
terval  the  attack  paused.  The  three  besieged  men  kept 
watch  as  they  might,  creeping  from  window  to  window. 
Out  under  the  blue  glare  of  the  commissary  arc-light 
the  body  of  the  negro  porter  lay  as  it  had  fallen.  Once, 
Ford  thought  he  heard  groans  from  the  black  shadow 
where  the  fat  cook  had  disappeared,  but  he  could  not  be 
sure.  On  the  other  side  of  the  private  car,  and  half-way 
between  it  and  the  forty-thousand-pound  load  of  high 
explosives,  the  petard  oyster-tin  lay  undisturbed,  with 
the  carving-knife  sticking  in  the  sand  beside  it. 

"What  will  they  try  next?"  queried  Adair,  when  the 
suspense  was  again  growing  intolerable. 

"It  is  simple  enough,  if  they  happen  to  think  of  it," 
was  Ford's  rejoinder.  "A  few  sticks  of  dynamite  in  a 
plugged  gas-pipe:  cut  your  fuse  long  enough,  light  it, 
and  throw  the  thing  under  the  car.  That  would  settle 
it." 

Adair  yawned  sleepily. 

"Well,  they've  got  all  night  for  the  inventive  part  of 


THE    SIEGE    OF   THE    NADIA          349 

it.  There's  no  rescue  for  us  unless  somebody — a  good 
husky  army  of  somebodies — just  happens  along/' 

"The  army  is  less  than  eight  miles  away — over  at 
Frisbie's  camp/'  said  Ford.  "With  Dick  to  lead  them, 
the  track-layers  would  sack  this  place  in  about  five 
minutes.  If  I  could  only  get  to  the  wire !" 

Brissac  heard  the  "if." 

"Let  me  try  to  run  their  picket  line,  Ford,"  he  said 
eagerly.  "If  I  can  get  around  to  our  quarters  and  into 
the  telegraph  tent — " 

"You  couldn't  do  it,  Eoy.  There  is  the  proof  of  it," 
pointing  to  the  body  of  the  slain  negro.  "But  I  have 
been  thinking  of  another  scheme.  The  track-camp  wire 
is  bracketed  across  the  yard  on  the  light-poles.  I  have 
my  pocket  relay.  I  wonder  if  we  could  manage  to  cut  in 
on  that  wire  ?" 

"Wait  a  minute,"  Brissac  interrupted.  He  was  gone 
but  a  moment,  and  when  he  returned  he  brought  hope 
with  him. 

"The  wire  is  down  and  lying  across  the  front  vesti 
bule,"  he  announced  excitedly.  "They  must  have  cut  it 
up  yonder  by  the  telegraph  tent  and  the  slack  has  sagged 
down  this  way." 

"Which  gives  us  a  dead  wire  without  any  batteries," 
said  Ford  gloomily ;  and  then :  "Hold  on — aren't  there 
electric  call-bells  in  this  car,  Adair  ?" 

"Yes,  several  of  them ;  one  in  each  state-room." 


350  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

"Good !  that  means  batteries  of  some  sort/'  said  Ford. 
"Rummage  for  them,  Brissac,  while  I  get  that  wire  in 
here." 

The  wire  was  successfully  pulled  in  through  the  front 
vestibule  without  giving  the  alarm.  Ford  twisted  it  in 
two  when  he  had  enough  of  it  to  reach  the  central  com 
partment.  Adair  did  sentry  duty  while  the  two  tech 
nicians  wrought  swiftly.  The  bell  battery  was  found, 
the  ground  connection  made  with  a  bit  of  copper  wire 
stripped  from  one  of  the  state-rooms,  and  Ford  quickly 
adjusted  the  delicate  spring  of  the  tiny  field  relay. 

What  he  feared  most  was  that  the  few  dry-cells  of  the 
bell  battery  would  not  supply  the  current  for  the  eight 
miles  of  line  up  Horse  Creek.  For  a  time,  which  length 
ened  to  dragging  minutes,  the  anxious  experimenters 
hung  over  the  tiny  field  instrument.  The  sensitive  mag 
net  seemed  wholly  dead.  Then,  suddenly,  it  began  to 
tick  hesitantly  in  response  to  Ford's  tapping  of  the  key. 

"Thank  God,  the  battery  is  strong  enough,"  he  ex 
claimed.  "Now,  if  there  is  somebody  within  hearing  at 
Frisbie's  end  of  the  line  ..." 

He  was  clicking  persistently  and  patiently,  "E-T," 
"E-T,"  "E-T,"  alternating  now  and  then  with  the  Horse 
Creek  call  and  his  own  private  code  letter,  when  Adair 
came  up  from  his  post  at  one  of  the  rear  windows.  The 
golden  youth  was  the  bearer  of  tidings,  but  Ford  held 
up  his  hand  for  silence:  some  one  was  breaking  in  to 


THE    SIEGE    OF  THE   NADIA          351 

reply  from  Frisbie's — Frisbie,  himself,  as  the  minimized 
tickings  speedily  announced. 

Ford  snipped  out  his  call  for  help  in  the  fewest  possi 
ble  words: 

Arm  M'Grath's  gang  and  bring  it  by  train  to  Horse 
Creek,  quick.  MacMorroghs  are  trying  to  dynamite  us  in 
the  Nadia.  FORD. 

Almost  without  a  break  in  the  insect-like  tickings  the 
reply  came: 

Stand  them  off;  help  coming. 

The  thing  done,  the  master  workman  in  Ford  snatched 
at  the  helm. 

Did  you  catch  and  hold  the  pick-and-shovel  men  from 
this  camp? 

he  clicked  anxiously. 

Got  them  all  herded  here  and  ready  to  go  back  to  work — 
for  more  pay, 

answered  Frisbie;  and  Ford  ticked  one  more  word, 
"Hurry,"  and  closed  the  key  with  a  sigh  of  relief.  Then, 
and  not  until  then,  Adair  said:  "Is  that  all,  for  the 
present?  If  it  is,  Fm  sorry  to  have  to  report  that  the 
beggars  outside  have  hit  upon  your  gas-pipe  scheme. 
They  are  rolling  a  round,  black  thing  with  a  string  at- 


352  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

tached  down  upon  us  from  the  commissary.  The  slant 
of  the  hill  is  just  enough  to  keep  it  coming  where  the 
ground  is  smooth." 

From  sheer  force  of  habit,  Ford  disconnected  his  field 
telegraph,  cased  and  pocketed  it.  Then  there  was  an  in 
stant  adjournment  to  the  rear  windows  on  the  camp 
side.  Happily,  the  rolling  homb  was  as  yet  only  on  the 
way.  Pebbles  and  roughnesses  intervened  here  and  there 
to  stop  or  to  turn  it  aside,  and  since  it  was  out  of  reach 
of  their  longest  pole,  the  dynamiters  would  start  it  on 
again  by  throwing  stones  at  it. 

Hereupon  ensued  a  struggle  which,  under  other  con 
ditions,  would  have  figured  as  horse-play.  One  after 
another  the  three  men  in  the  car  heaved  cushions,  pil 
lows,  obstructions  of  any  sort,  in  the  path  of  the  rolling 
menace.  And  behind  the  commissary  barricade  the 
dynamiters  patiently  twitched  the  bomb  by  the  firmly 
fastened  fuse  this  way  and  that  to  avoid  the  obstacles, 
or  sent  it  forward  under  the  impact  of  well-directed 
missiles. 

Ford  was  the  first  of  the  three  to  recognize  the  futility 
of  the  cushion  barricades. 

"They'll  beat  us — they'll  drop  it  in  the  ditch  right 
here  under  us  in  spite  of  fate !"  he  cried.  "Brissac :  go 
and  break  the  glass  in  the  accident  tool-case  and  bring 
me  the  ax,  quickly !"  And  when  he  had  it :  "Now  get 
me  a  piece  of  that  telegraph  wire  and  bend  a  hook  on  the 


THE    SIEGE    OF   THE    NADIA          353 

end  of  it — jump  for  it;  you'll  have  to  twist  it  off  with 
your  fingers !" 

With  an  energy  that  made  no  account  of  the  lamed 
arm,  Ford  tore  up  the  carpet  and  fell  to  work  fiercely, 
cutting  a  hole  through  the  car  floor ;  while  Brissac  broke 
a  piece  from  the  wire  and  bent  a  finger-shaped  hook  on 
the  end  of  it  Adair,  with  his  eye  at  a  hole  in  a  window 
shade,  gave  his  attention  to  the  attack. 

"They  are  getting  it  here,  slowly  but  surely,"  he  re 
ported.  "It  is  going  to  roll  under  us  just  about  where 
you  are.  .  .  .  Now  it  has  gone  past  my  line  of  sight." 
And  a  moment  later,  in  the  same  drawling  monotone : 
"They  have  lighted  the  fuse,  but  there  is  a  good  long 
string  of  it  to  burn  through.  Take  your  time — "  then, 
with  a  sudden  failure  in  the  monotone:  "No,  by  Jove  I 
you  can't  take  your  time!  The  fire  is  jumping  across 
the  road  to  beat  the  band !" 

The  hole  was  opened  through  the  floor,  and  Ford  was 
on  his  stomach  with  his  face  and  an  arm  in  the  aperture, 
fishing  desperately  for  the  loop  in  the  fuse.  It  was  his 
success,  his  sudden  drawing  of  the  loop  up  into  the  car, 
that  had  shocked  Adair  out  of  his  pose.  Brissac  was 
ready  with  the  ax,  and  the  instant  the  loop  appeared  it 
was  severed,  the  burning  end  cast  off,  and  the  other  end, 
with  the  bomb  attached,  was  safely  drawn  up  into  the 
car. 

The  perspiration  was  running  from  Ford's  face  in 


354  EMPIEE    BUILDERS 

streams  when  he  had  the  engine  of  death  securely  in  his 
hands. 

"Take  it,  Roy,"  he  gasped.  "Drop  it  into  the  water- 
cooler.  That  will  be  the  safest  place  for  it  if  they  fall 
back  on  the  gun-play." 

As  if  his  word  had  evoked  it,  a  storm  of  rifle  bullets 
swept  through  the  car,  smashing  windows,  breaking  the 
remaining  gas  globes  and  splintering  the  wood-work. 
Again  and  again  the  flashes  leaped  out  of  the  surround 
ing  shadows  and  the  air  was  sibilant  with  whining  mis 
siles. 

Brissac  had  the  infernal  machine :  at  first  he  fell  upon 
it  and  covered  it  with  his  body;  afterward  he  crawled 
with  it  into  the  nearest  state-room  and  muffled  it  in  a 
roll  of  berth  mattresses. 

When  the  storm  ceased,  as  suddenly  as  it  had  begun, 
they  crept  together  in  the  vestibule  farthest  from  the 
commissary  lead-hurling  volcano  to  count  the  casual 
ties. 

There  was  none ;  not  even  a  bullet  score  or  a  splinter- 
wound  to  show  for  the  hot  bombardment,  though  the 
side  of  the  Nadia  facing  the  commissary  was  riddled. 

"I'm  believing  all  I've  ever  read  about  its  taking  a 
hundred  pounds  of  lead  to  kill  one  man  in  a  war  battle," 
said  the  New  Yorker,  grimly  humorous  to  the  last 
"How  do  you  two  C.  E.'s  account  for  it  ?" 

"We  don't,"  said  Ford  shortly.  "We're  merely  thank- 


Brissac  hurled  the  skillet  like  a  clumsy  discus    Page  355 


THE    SIEGE    OF   THE    NADIA          355 

ful  that  all  humankind  habitually  shoots  high  when  it's 
excited  or  in  a  hurry." 

Then  he  sprang  afoot,  secured  his  ax,  and  sent  Brissac 
to  the  pantry  to  rummage  for  other  weapons.  "A  rush 
is  the  next  thing  in  order,"  he  suggested;  and  they  pre 
pared  as  they  could  to  meet  it. 

But  the  rush  did  not  come.  Instead  of  it,  one  man, 
carrying  what  appeared  to  be  a  bundle  of  dripping  rags, 
came  cautiously  into  the  open  and  approached  the  shat 
tered  car.  The  night  wind  sweeping  down  from  the  up 
per  valley  was  with  him,  and  the  pungent  odor  of  kero 
sene  was  wafted  to  and  through  the  broken  windows. 

"Oho !"  said  Adair.  "Having  safely  shot  you  dead  or 
disabled,  they  are  now  going  to  give  you  Christian 
burial,  Ford.  Also,  they  will  comfortably  obliterate  all 
the  marks  and  scars  of  this  pleasant  evening's  diversion. 
How  near  shall  I  let  him  come  before  I  squander  one  of 
the  two  remaining  cartridges  on  him  ?" 

"Wait,"  said  Brissac  in  a  half -whisper.  In  his  second 
pantry  rummaging  he  had  found  nothing  more  promis 
ing  than  a  cast-iron  skillet — promising  because  it  had 
weight  and  a  handle  to  wield  it  by.  The  intending  in 
cendiary  was  no  more  than  a  few  yards  from  his  goal 
when  Brissac  rose  up  opposite  the  nearest  shattered  win 
dow  and  hurled  the  skillet  like  a  clumsy  discus.  His 
aim  was  true  to  a  hand's-breadth :  a  bullet  from  Adair's 
pistol  could  have  done  no  more.  With  a  cry  that  was 


356  EMPIKE   BUILDERS 

fairly  shogged  out  of  him  by  the  impact  of  the  iron  mis 
sile,  the  man  flung  away  his  burden,  dropped  in  his 
tracks  and  lay  groaning. 

They  looked  for  another  storm  of  lead  to  follow  this, 
and  hugged  the  floor  in  readiness  for  it.  When  it  did 
not  come,  Ford  crept  to  the  hole  in  the  car  floor  and  lis 
tened  long  and  intently.  Half  an  hour  he  had  given 
Frisbie  to  get  his  track-layers  together,  and  to  cover  the 
eight  miles  of  rough-laid  rails  with  the  construction 
train.  What  was  delaying  him  ? 

"You  said  Gallagher  ditched  your  car:  did  it  block 
the  track  ?"  he  asked  of  Adair. 

"It  did,  didn't  it,  Brissac?"  was  the  answer,  and  the 
assistant  confirmed  it. 

"Then  that  is  why  Frisbie  can't  get  to  us.  Was  Gal 
lagher's  engine  still  on  the  rails  ?" 

"It  was." 

Ford  sat  up  and  nursed  his  knees.  "Dick  will  make  a 
way  if  he  can't  find  one  ready  made.  But  it  may  take 
hours.  Meanwhile,  if  these  devils  have  scouts  out — " 

"Yes?"  said  Adair. 

"They'll  bring  the  warning,  and  there  won't  be  much 
more  time  wasted  in  experiments.  They  can  do  us  up, 
if  they  get  right  down  to  business." 

"What  are  they  doing  now  ?"  Adair  asked  of  Brissac, 
who  was  on  watch  on  the  commissary  side. 

"I'll  be  hanged  if  I  know.  It  looks  like  a  young  can- 


THE   SIEGE   OF   THE   NADIA          357 

non,  and  it's  pointed  this  way.  By  George !  it's  coming 
— coming  by  its  all  alone,  too !" 

By  this  time  they  were  all  watching  the  new  menace. 
Brissac's  description  fitted  it  accurately;  a  cylindrical 
object  mounted  upon  a  pair  of  small  wheels  taken  from 
the  commissary  store-room  truck.  It  came  toward  the 
Nadia  by  curious  surges — a  rush  forward  and  a  pause — 
trailing  what  appeared  to  be  a  long  iron  rod  behind  it. 

Ford  hit  upon  the  explanation.  The  cylindrical  thing 
was  another  gas-pipe  bomb;  the  iron  tail  was  a  smaller 
pipe  containing  and  armoring  the  fuse,  and  serving  also 
as  the  means  of  propulsion.  They  were  coupling  on  ad 
ditional  lengths  of  the  fuse-carrying  pipe  as  they  were 
needed ;  hence  the  jerking  advances  and  pauses. 

Adair's  low  laugh  was  as  care-free  as  ever. 

"A  practical  illustration  of  the  tail  wagging  the  dog," 
he  remarked.  "But  the  dog  will  wag  us  good  and  plenty 
when  they  get  him  where  they  want  him.  You  can't  fish 
that  thing  up  through  the  hole  with  your  wire — or  crop 
the  tail." 

"No;  it's  a  run  for  it,  this  time,"  said  Ford,  rising 
and  stripping  his  coat. 

But  Brissac  was  pointing  to  three  or  four  men  dodg 
ing  from  shadow  to  shadow  under  the  masthead  lights 
and  circling  wide  to  tighten  the  line  of  circumvallation. 

"We  shan't  run  very  far,"  he  commented. 

It  seemed  a  hair-graying  age  to  the  watchers  at  the 


358  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

Nadia's  windows  before  the  men  behind  the  commissary 
barricade  got  their  infernal  machine  placed  to  their 
liking.  They  stared  at  it,  all  three  of  them,  fascinated, 
deaf  and  blind  to  all  else.  A  minimized  shudder  as  of 
drumming  wheels  or  escaping  steam  was  in  the  air  when 
they  saw  the  flare  of  the  match  that  betokened  the  firing 
of  the  fuse,  but  no  one  of  the  three  heard  it. 

It  was  when  the  sputtering  line  of  fire  had  buried 
itself  in  its  tube  that  they  became  suddenly  alive  to  the 
unbelievable  fact  that  a  locomotive  was  thundering  down 
the  yard  on  the  Nadia's  track.  A  rifle  cracked ;  then  an 
other  and  a  third;  but  the  engine  came  on  as  if  its 
driver  bore  a  charmed  life. 

Surely  Michael  Gallagher  must  have  prayed  to  the 
saints  that  night.  He  did  not  know  that  the  very  seconds 
had  become  priceless :  he  knew  only  that  Frisbie  had  sent 
him  on  ahead  to  snake  the  president's  car  out  of  the 
Horse  Creek  yard  as  quickly  as  possible.  Yet  if  he  could 
have  seen  the  bomb  and  the  sputtering  fuse,  he  could 
not  have  slowed  more  deftly  to  let  the  automatic  coup 
lers  clutch  each  other,  nor,  at  the  touch  and  clamp,  could 
he  have  reversed  and  gathered  headway  with  greater 
skill. 

The  three  occupants  of  the  Nadia  staggered  to  their 
feet  as  the  private  car  lunged  ahead  in  the  grasp  of  the 
big  engine,  increasing  speed  with  every  wheel-turn. 
Mechanically,  and  as  one  man,  they  rushed  to  the  rear 


THE    SIEGE    OF    THE    NADIA          359 

platform.  The  mock  cannon  stood  where  it  had  been 
thrust;  but  in  the  camp  street  a  handful  of  men  were 
wrestling  madly  with  the  pipe  fuse-carrier,  breaking  it, 
wrenching  it  in  pieces,  and  stamping  futilely  upon  the 
snake-like  thing  hissing  and  spitting  under  their  feet. 

"Look  I"  sobbed  Adair.  "They  know — they've  discov 
ered  that  box-car !  Oh,  why  in  the  name  of  the  pitiful 
Christ  don't  they  drop  it  and  run  ?" 

This  from  the  man  who  had  laughed,  and  aimed  and 
fired  and  laughed  again,  in  the  heat  of  battle.  But 
Ford's  rejoinder  was  the  bitter  malediction  of  the  de 
feated  industry  captain.  "Damn  their  worthless  lives !" 
he  stormed.  "In  the  next  half -minute  the  Pacific  South 
western  stands  to  lose  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars !" 

It  was  but  a  vanishing  glimpse  that  they  had  of  the 
handful  of  madmen  stamping  and  dancing  under  the 
masthead  light  in  front  of  the  commissary;  a  glimpse 
withdrawing  swiftly  into  a  dim  perspective  as  the  Nadia 
was  whisked  around  the  curve  and  up  the  Horse  Creek 
grade. 

It  was  after  Gallagher  had  picked  up  the  lights  of  the 
waiting  train  of  armed  track-layers,  and  was  whistling 
to  announce  his  success,  that  the  end  came.  For  the 
three  watchers  on  the  rear  platform  of  the  president's 
car  the  little  constellation  of  arostars  in  the  valley  be 
low  was  suddenly  blotted  out  in  a  skyward  belching  of 
gray  flame ;  a  huge  volcano-burst  of  momentarily  illumi- 


360  EMPIKE   BUILDEKS 

nated  dust.  Instinctively  they  braced  themselves  for  the 
concussion  that  followed, — a  bellowing  thunderclap  and 
a  rending  of  earth  and  air  that  shook  the  surrounding 
hills  and  drowned  the  shriek  of  Gallagher's  whistle. 

A  blast  of  air,  down-drawn  from  the  heights  to  fill 
the  dreadful  vacuum,  was  still  rocking  the  stopped  car 
when  Frisbie  climbed  nimbly  to  the  railed  rear  platform 
and  swung  his  lantern  to  light  the  faces  of  the  three 
men  braced  in  the  doorway. 

"A  close  call,  gentlemen,"  was  his  only  comment ;  and 
then  he  appealed  briefly  to  Ford  for  orders. 

"Back  us  down  slowly,"  said  Ford  shortly,  "and  fol 
low  with  your  train.  We  may  need  the  men/5 

Frisbie  went  forward  through  the  wrecked  private  car, 
returning  presently  to  flag  Gallagher  along  with  the  lan 
tern  swung  over  the  railing.  Down  in  the  valley  of  the 
Pannikin  the  heavy,  sickening  fumes  of  the  burned  ex 
plosives  hung  in  the  air,  and  when  the  car  swung  in  on 
the  straight  line  the  red  glare  of  a  wrecked  and  burning 
oil  tank  lighted  the  scene. 

The  camp  site  was  blankly  unrecognizable.  Where  the 
ten-tracked  yard  had  been  there  was  a  vast  depression, 
half-filled  with  distorted  steel  and  debris  indescribable, 
twisted  iron  and  splintered  wood,  with  the  water  from 
the  river  pouring  into  it.  The  commissary  buildings 
and  the  surrounding  bunk-shanties  were  gone,  swept 
away  as  with  the  stroke  of  a  mighty  broom;  and  the 


THE    SIEGE    OF   THE   NADIA          361 

trees  on  the  hill-sides  above  were  scorched  and  shriveled 
as  if  a  forest  fire  had  blasted  them. 

Frisbie  was  the  first  to  speak  after  he  had  flagged 
Gallagher  to  a  stand  on  the  farthermost  edge  of  the 
devastation. 

"Any  use  to  turn  out  the  crew  and  hunt  for  them?" 
he  asked. 

Ford  shook  his  head. 

"No.  Leave  M'Grath  and  a  few  others  to  stand  guard 
and  to  flag  the  incoming  steel  trains,  and  let's  get  out 
of  this.  Fm  sick;  and  so  is  Mr.  Adair." 


XXVI 

THE   STAR   OP  EMPIRE 

A  week,  the  most  strenuous  week  in  Copah's  history, 
had  passed,  and  still  the  president's  party  delayed  its 
return  to  what  Miss  Priscilla  Van  Bruce  constantly  re 
ferred  to  as  "civilization" ;  though  the  Farthest  West 
has  always  been  slow  to  admit  the  derogatory  compari 
son  which  the  word  implies. 

During  the  strenuous  week  much  had  happened,  and 
much  more  was  scheduled  to  happen.  For  one  twenty- 
four-hour  day  the  ex-speculator  in  Mr.  Colbrith  held  out 
against  the  sharp  attacks  of  the  reawakened  lust  of  con 
quest.  Then,  from  Jack's  Canyon  on  the  Transconti 
nental,  from  men-clustered  construction  trains  on  the 
extension,  over  the  passes  from  Summit  Lakes,  and 
across  the  brown  plains  from  Green  Butte,  poured  the 
army  of  gold-seekers,  and  the  president  was  swept  away 
and  into  the  very  vortex  of  the  stock-jobbing  whirlpool. 

It  was  not  until  the  third  day  of  the  week  that  Adair 
came  ambling  into  Copah,  riding  a  cart  mule  from  Fris- 

362 


THE    STAR   OF   EMPIRE  363 

bie's  camp.  To  his  sister  and  his  aunt  the  young  man 
told  everything ;  to  his  uncle  nothing.  Between  gasps  in 
the  speculative  frenzy  Mr.  Colbrith  found  time  to  com 
plain  bitterly  to  his  nephew  of  Ford's  defection. 

"It  was  dastardly !"  he  shrilled.  "We  had  some  words ; 
I  don't  deny  that  we  had  some  words.  But  he  was  most 
unreasonable.  He  should  have  gone  about  his  business 
and  let  me  have  time  to  consider.  Here  are  thousands 
of  people  pouring  into  this  place,  everything  at  famine 
prices,  no  supplies  for  our  miners,  no  railroad  to  bring 
them.  What's  this  I  hear  about  an  accident  at  Horse 
Creek  ?  Why  isn't  Ford  on  the  ground  attending  to  his 
railroad  building  and  straightening  things  out?  Have 
I  got  to  forfeit  the  money-making  chance  of  a  lifetime 
and  go  and  drag  that  track  into  Copah  with  my  own 
hands?" 

Adair  seemed  suddenly  to  have  lost  his  tongue,  which 
was  certainly  glib  enough  ordinarily.  All  he  would  say 
was  that  the  engineering  department  was  still  at  work, 
he  believed;  that  the  track  was  approaching  Copah, 
slowly,  perhaps,  but  pretty  surely. 

"But  without  a  head!"  snapped  the  irate  president. 
"Ford  is  a  traitor  to  the  company.  Tell  him  so  from  me, 
sir,  if  you  know  where  he  is  skulking." 

Adair  did  tell  Ford,  circumstantially,  when  he  rode 
the  cart  mule  out  of  town  the  next  morning  and  met 
the  young  engineer  at  the  head  of  a  tremendously  aug- 


364  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

merited  track  force,  rushing  the  rails  around  the  swell 
ing  hills  on  the  approach  to  the  mining-camp-city. 

"Oh,  he's  still  up  in  the  air/'  laughed  the  director., 
when  he  had  repeated  the  president's  wrathful  outburst. 
"Frantic  because  the  road  isn't  finished ;  frantic  because 
he  can't  get  in  on  all  the  ground-floors  in  all  the  mining 
deals;  frantic  some  more  because  he  has  to  live  in  a 
shack  hotel  while  he  has  a  private  car  and  a  good  cook, 
as  he  thinks,  only  a  few  miles  away.  Which  reminds 
me :  the  '01'  has  a  pretty  good  cook,  and  the  incompar 
able  Johnson, — don't  let  them  escape.  Have  you  sent 
the  Nadia  back  to  Denver  for  repairs  ?" 

"Yes ;  Frisbie  went  over  in  it  this  morning." 

"Frisbie?" 

"Yes,  I  had  to  let  him  go.  Word  came  from  Leckhard 
as  soon  as  we  got  the  wire  reestablished,  which  was  late 
last  night.  North  was  taken  suddenly  ill  the  day  after 
the  explosion.  He  resigned  at  once  by  wire  to  the  execu 
tive  committee  in  New  York,  and  two  days  later  he  took 
a  steamer  from  Galveston  for  nobody  knows  where; 
health  trip — doctor's  orders — Leckhard  said.  I  sent 
Frisbie  over  to  be  acting  manager  of  the  system,  pend 
ing  the  president's — er — recovery  from  his  sudden  ill 
ness.  Leckhard  says  the  New  York  people  are  burning 
the  wires  trying  to  get  word  to  Mr.  Colbrith." 

"They  may  go  on  burning  them,"  said  Adair  calmly. 
"Uncle  Sidney  isn't  going  to  quit  until  he  owns  a  good 


THE    STAK    OF   EMPIRE  3G5 

half  of  the  Copah  district — or  gets  his  armature  burned 
out.  And  if  he  were  ready  to  quit,  we  shouldn't  let  him. 
But  how  are  things  working  out  on  the  extension? — 
that  is  what  interests  me." 

"Bully!"  was  the  enthusiastic  reply.  "We're  spend 
ing  money  like  water;  paying  anything  that's  asked; 
and  even  then  the  men  come  and  go  like  a  torchlight 
procession.  But  we  are  keeping  the  surfacing  gangs 
neck-full  the  entire  length  of  the  line,  and  Leckhard 
has  already  organized  his  regular  train  service  over  the 
first  hundred  miles.  That  puts  us  on  an  even  footing 
with  the  Transcontinental  at  Jack's  Canyon,  and  the 
tide  is  fairly  turned  our  way.  When  we  lay  the  rails 
into  Copah, — which  will  be  the  day  after  to-morrow,  if 
nothing  pulls  in  two, — the  first  through  passenger  train, 
with  the  '01'  in  tow,  will  be  right  behind  us.  Does  the 
report  satisfy  you  ?" 

"Your  word  fits  it:  it's  bully." 

"Then  I  want  my  reward.  When  am  I  to  be  allowed 
to  chase  in  and  pay  my  respects  to  your — er — aunt,  and 
— and  Miss  Alicia  ?" 

Adair  laughed. 

"My — er — aunt !"  he  mocked.  "Much  you  care  about 
Aunt  Hetty.  And  I've  a  thing  or  two  to  say  about  Alicia, 
Who  gave  you  leave  to  fall  in  love  with  my  little  sister, 
I'd  like  to  know?" 

"She  did,"  retorted  Ford  brazenly.    "Don't  tell  me 


366  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

you  are  going  to  try  to  kick  it  over  at  this  late  day. 
You  can't,  you  know." 

Adair  tilted  his  hat  to  the  back  of  his  head  and  thrust 
his  hands  into  his  pockets. 

"I'm  no  such  wild  ass  of  the  prairies/'  he  declared. 
"But,  my  good  friend,  you  don't  come  into  town  till 
you  bring  your  railroad  with  you.  I  know  how  it  will 
be:  you'd  linger  for  just  one  more  last  fond  farewell, 
and  about  that  time  Uncle  Sidney  would  drop  in  on  you 
unexpectedly.  Then  there'd  be  a  family  row,  after  which 
my  Pacific  Southwestern  stock  wouldn't  be  worth  a 
whoop.  No;  you  wait  till  I  get  Uncle  Sidney  safely 
where  I  want  him — properly  in  the  nine-hole,  and  then 
I'll  flag  you  in." 

The  chance  for  which  the  golden  youth  was  waiting 
and  working  climaxed  on  the  day  the  extension  rails 
came  down  the  hill-side  grade  above  the  town — a  town 
now  spreading  into  a  wilderness  of  hastily  built  and 
crowding  structures.  It  was  a  simple  pit  he  had  digged 
for  an  old  man  suddenly  gone  mad  with  the  fever  of 
mine-buying.  From  picking  up  stock  in  a  score  of 
prospects,  Mr.  Colbrith  had  hedged  by  concentrating  his 
heavy  investments  in  six  or  seven  of  the  most  promising 
of  the  partly  developed  properties.  Then,  to  make  as 
surance  reasonably  sure,  he  had  sprung  the  modern 
method  of  combination  upon  his  fellow  stock-holders  in 
the  producing  mines.  The  promising  group  was  to  be 


THE    STAB   OF   EMPIRE  367 

merged  in  one  giant  holding  corporation,  strong  enough 
to  control  the  entire  Copali  situation. 

But  there  were  obstacles  in  the  way;  obstructions 
carefully  placed,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  by  an  unscru 
pulous  young  manipulator  in  the  president's  own  house 
hold.  The  Little  Alicia  was  in  the  group,  was  the 
keystone  in  the  combination  arch,  as  it  chanced,  and  un 
happily  Grigsby  had  parted  with  a  grievous  block  of  his 
share  of  the  stock — a  block  which  could  neither  be  re 
covered  nor  traced  to  its  present  holder.  Not  to  make  a 
mystery  of  the  matter,  the  certificates  were  safely  locked 
in  a  safety-deposit  box  in  the  vault  of  the  Bank  of  Co- 
pah,  and  the  key  to  the  box  rattled  in  Adair's  pocket. 
And  because  the  Little  Alicia  could  not  be  included, 
three  other  necessary  votes  were  withheld  when  the  presi 
dent  tried  to  get  action. 

Mr.  Colbrith  was  in  despair.  A  good  many  of  his  in 
vestments  were  palpably  bad;  and  they  could  be  re 
couped  only  by  the  backing  of  the  combination.  And  the 
combination  obstinately  refused  to  combine  unless  the 
Little  Alicia  could  be  gathered  in.  At  the  end  of  the 
ends  Mr.  Colbrith  appealed  to  his  nephew. 

(CYoM  know  where  Ford  is,"  he  began  accusingly. 
"You  needn't  deny  it.  I  was  in  hopes  we  wouldn't  have 
to  ask  him  to  sell  us  more  than  one  share  of  his  stock, 
which  he  couldn't  decently  refuse  to  do  if  we  let  him  set 
his  own  price.  But  since  we  can't  trace  that  block  that 


368  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

Grigsby  let  go,  we  must  have  nearly  all  of  Ford's.  Find 
him:  get  his  stock  if  you  have  to  pay  twice  par  for  it. 
If  you  don't,  I — I  shall  be  the  heaviest  loser  in  this 
camp,  Charles  Edward."  It  was  gall  and  wormwood  to 
the  old  man,  but  it  had  to  be  swallowed. 

"So  you  are  coming  around  to  ask  a  favor  of  Ford  ?" 
said  the  young  man  unfeelingly.  "He  won't  help  you 
out.  You  mustn't  forget  that  you  kicked  him  out  of  the 
family ;  or  rather  you  kicked  him  to  prevent  his  getting 
into  it." 

"But  think  of  the  profit  to  him !"  protested  the  presi 
dent.  "He  paid  only  twenty  cents  for  his  half  of  the 
Alicia;  he  told  me  so  himself.  At  two  hundred  he'd 
clear  ninety  thousand;  a  magnificent  amount  for  so 
young  a  man !" 

"Ford  doesn't  care  anything  about  money.  You  can't 
move  him  that  way." 

"Well,  then,  find  him  for  me  and  I'll— I'll  apologize," 
said  Mr.  Colbrith,  pressed  now  to  the  last  extremity. 

"He  doesn't  want  your  apologies,  Uncle  Sidney.  Your 
little  tiff  was  between  man  and  man,  and  he'd  never 
think  of  holding  you  accountable  for  anything  you  were 
foolish  enough  to  say." 

"Then  what  in  heaven's  name  does  he  want  ?" — iras 
cibly. 

"Oh,  a  lot  of  things:  reinstatement;  your  order  to 
investigate  the  Denver  management;  a  chance  to  build 


THE    STAR    OF   EMPIRE  369 

his  railroad  unmolested;  and,,  as  a  side  issue,  a  chance 
to  whitewash  your  administration  of  Pacific  Southwest 
ern  by  conducting  the  house-cleaning  in  your  name — this 
last  because  he  thinks  something  of  the  family  honor. 
He  doesn't  have  to  consider  us,  you  know.  At  the  next 
annual  meeting  he  can  elect  Brewster  president  over 
your  head :  then  you  will  have  to  stand  for  all  the  graft 
ing  and  deviltry  that  will  be  unearthed." 

The  ground  for  this  duel  between  President  Colbrith 
and  the  determined  young  pace-setter  was  the  lobby  of 
the  tar-paper-covered  hotel,  cleared  now  of  the  im 
promptu  mining-stock  exchange,  which  had  moved  into 
permanent  quarters.  The  old  man  rose  stiffly  and  stood 
grasping  the  chair-back. 

"The  same  reckless  charges  against  Mr.  North  and  his 
subordinates — and  now  you  are  making  them !"  he 
rasped.  "They  are  groundless;  groundless,  I  tell  you!" 

Adair  looked  at  his  watch,  listened  a  moment  as  for 
some  expected  sound  from  out-of-doors,  and  motioned 
toward  the  vacated  chair. 

"Sit  down,  Uncle  Sidney,  and  let  me  tell  you  what 
happened  at  Horse  Creek  camp  a  week  ago  last  night/' 
he  said  evenly ;  and  then  he  told  the  story  of  the  attempt 
upon  Ford's  life,  of  the  siege  of  the  Nadia,  of  the  ter 
rible  catastrophe  which  had  involved  all  three  of  the 
MacMorroghs,  the  commissary  staff,  Eckstein,  and  the 
headquarters  camp.  When  he  finished,  the  president 


370  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

was  shaking  as  if  from  a  chill.  Yet  one  thread  of  the 
strong  strand  of  loyalty  still  held. 

"It  was  horrible — fiendish!"  he  shuddered.  "But  it 
was  the  MacMorroghs'  fight.  It  does  not  necessarily  in 
criminate  North." 

"It  does/'  said  Adair,  in  the  same  even  tone.  "I  told 
you  that  we  left  a  few  men  at  the  wrecked  camp  to  warn 
the  incoming  material  trains.  They  found  a  single  sur 
vivor  of  the  thirteen  men  who  tried  to  destroy  us  and 
the  Nadia.  It  was  Eckstein,  North's  secretary,  and  be 
fore  he  died  he  amply  confirmed  all  of  our  guesses.  They 
had  plotted  to  have  you  quarrel  with  Ford.  Ford  had 
bought  his  half  of  the  Little  Alicia  without  any  prompt 
ing,  but  from  that  as  a  starting  point  the  entire  scheme 
was  worked  up.  The  MacMorroghs'  bookkeeper,  a  man 
named  Merriam, — who  is  at  present  in  Copah,  and 
whose  deposition  I  have  had  taken  before  a  justice  of 
the  peace, — was  detailed  to  win  Frisbie  over  to  the 
change  of  route — no  difficult  thing,  since  the  change 
was  for  the  better.  But  Merriam's  part  was  chiefly  to 
keep  Frisbie  from  finding  out  anything  about  Ford's 
mine ;  which  he  did.  Am  I  making  it  clear  ?" 

The  president  bowed  his  head. 

"Then,  when  you  came  West  on  your  inspection  trip, 
the  trap  was  sprung.  You  were  told  that  Ford  had  been 
doing  a  dishonorable  thing,  and  you  were  urged  to  come 
over  here  and  see  for  yourself.  To  make  sure  that  there 


THE    STAR   OF    EMPIRE  371 

should  be  no  slips,  Penfield  was  sent  with  you,  ostensibly 
as  your  acting  secretary,  but  really  as  a  spy — " 

"Oh,  no;  I  can't  think  that  of  young  Penfield/'  pro 
tested  the  president, 

"I  say  yes;  and  the  proof  is  that  Penfield  has  con 
fessed.  He  was  scared  into  it  when  I  told  him  what  had 
happened  at  Horse  Creek  and  gave  him  his  choice  of 
telling  me  what  he  knew,  or  going  to  jail.  Then  I  came 
on  the  scene  at  the  inopportune  moment,  and  after 
North  had  carefully  issued  instructions  intended  to  de 
lay  me  as  much  as  possible,  he  sent  Eckstein  in  post 
haste  by  way  of  Jack's  Canyon  and  the  stage  trail  to  get 
ahead  of  me.  You  see,  he  was  afraid  to  trust  matters  to 
Penfield,  who  would  most  certainly  have  stopped  short 
of  the  desperate  measures  Eckstein  and  the  MacMor- 
roghs  finally  took.  It  was  decided  at  a  council  in  which 
Penfield  was  present,  that  Ford's  elimination  must  go 
through.  If  you  didn't  quarrel  with  him  and  drop  him, 
he  was  to  be  murdered." 

Mr.  Colbrith  was  silent  for  a  long  minute  after  Adair 
ceased  speaking.  Then  he  looked  up  to  say :  "What  was 
Ford  doing  at  Horse  Creek  that  night?  He  had  left  me 
only  a  few  hours  before ;  and,  as  I  have  said,  we  had — 
we  had  some  words." 

Adair  smiled.  "He  was  about  to  begin  doing  what  he 
has  been  doing  ever  since:  flogging  the  extension  into 
shape  night  and  day  to  get  it  ready  to  carry  passengers 


372  EMPIRE   BUILDERS 

and  freight.  He  conceived  it  to  be  his  duty — to  yon  as 
well  as  to  the  other  stock-holders.  And  he  has  flogged 
it  into  shape.  Look  out  of  that  window,  Uncle  Sidney  I" 

A  long  passenger  train,  crowded  to  the  platforms,  and 
with  the  private  car  "01"  in  tow,  was  winding  down  the 
grade  of  the  opposite  hillside,  and  as  they  stepped  to  the 
windows  the  engineer  woke  the  echoes  with  the  engine 
whistle. 

"The  first  one  of  many,  let  us  hope,"  said  the  young 
man,  standing  at  his  uncle's  elbow.  Then,  with  quite  "a 
different  note  in  his  voice :  "It's  Stuart's  work,  all  of  it. 
He  has  scarcely  stopped  to  eat  or  sleep  since  that  horrible 
night  in  the  Pannikin  valley.  And  that  night,  Uncle 
Sidney,  I  fought  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  him — as  a 
brother  should;  he  is  a  man,  and — there  are  not  many 
more — like  him." 

The  president's  thin  lips  were  drawn  into  straight 
lines,  and  the  thin  goafs-beard  stood  out  at  the  argu 
mentative  angle.  Mr.  Colbrith  was  chary  of  his  emo 
tions. 

"Will  he  sell  us  that  stock  in  the  Little  Alicia,  Charles 
Edward?" 

Adair  smiled  at  the  determined  return  to  the  prac 
tical. 

"No,"  he  said;  "I  don't  think  he  will— I  shouldn't, 
if  I  were  in  his  place.  But  he  will  do  the  next  best 
thing:  he  will  marry  Alicia  and  so  bring  it  into  the 


THE    STAR   OF   EMPIRE  373 

family.  And  on  the  railroad  conditions  I  have  named, 
I  am  quite  sure  he  will  make  you  his  voting  proxy  if 
you  want  to  use  it  in  forcing  the  combine." 

The  president  took  a  turn  as  far  as  the  clerk's  counter 
and  back.  The  lobby  was  deserted,  everybody  having 
gone  to  welcome  the  first  train  into  Copah. 

"You  seem  to  have  North  against  the  wall,"  he  said 
when  he  came  back.  "Yet,  for  the  sake  of — of,  well  of 
his  wife  and  children,  he  must  have  even-handed  justice. 
I  must  insist  upon  that." 

It  was  the  most  lovable  thing  in  the  irascible  old 
man — his  undying  loyalty  to  a  man  in  whom  he  had 
once  believed.  Adair  slew  the  last  hope  with  reluctance. 
Drawing  a  thick  packet  of  undelivered  telegrams  from 
his  pocket,  he  handed  it  to  his  uncle. 

"Justice  is  the  one  thing  Mr.  North  is  most  anxious 
to  dodge,"  he  said  gravely.  "When  the  news  of  the 
catastrophe  reached  him,  he  resigned  by  wire — to  New 
York;  not  to  you — got  his  physician  to  order  him  out 
of  the  country,  and  left  Denver  between  two  days.  Ford 
has  sent  Frisbie  to  Denver  to  hold  things  together,  and 
there  has  been  a  number  of  removals — subject,  of 
course,  to  your  approval.  You  will  find  the  history  of 
all  these  minor  happenings  in  those  telegrams,  which  I 
have  been  collecting — and  holding — until  you  had  lei 
sure  to  look  them  over." 

"Where  is  Mr.  Ford  now  ?"  asked  the  president  crisply. 


374:  EMPIEE   BUILDEKS 

"He  is  not  very  far  away;  in  fact,  he  is  up-stairs  in 
the  sitting-room  of  our  suite  with  Aunt  Hetty  and  the 
two  Van  Bruce  ladies  and  Alicia.  Incidentally, — quite 
incidentally,  you  understand, — he  is  waiting  to  be  asked 
to  help  you  out  in  that  mining  deal." 

"Fetch  him,"  was  the  curt  command;  and  Mr.  Col- 
brith  sat  down  to  wade  resignedly  through  the  mass  of 
delayed  wire  correspondence. 

What  remains  of  the  story  of  the  Pacific  Southwestern 
is  a  chapter,  as  yet  unfinished,  in  the  commercial  history 
of  the  great  and  growing  empire  of  the  West. 

Of  the  rush  to  the  Copah  gold  field ;  of  the  almost  in 
credible  celerity  with  which  a  stretch  of  one  hundred 
and  forty-odd  miles  of  construction  track  was  opened 
for  the  enormous  traffic  which  was  instantly  poured  in 
upon  it ;  of  the  rapid  extension  of  the  line  to  a  far  west 
ern  outlet;  of  the  steady  advance  of  P.  S-W.  shares  to  a 
goodly  premium:  these  are  matters  which  are  recorded 
in  the  newspaper  files  of  the  period. 

For  the  typically  American  success  of  the  Southwest- 
ern's  dramatic  upward  leap  to  the  rank  of  a  great  rail 
way  system,  President  Colbrith  has  the  name  and  the 
fame.  Yet  here  and  there  in  the  newspaper  record  there 
is  mention  of  one  Stuart  Ford,  "our  rising  young  rail 
road  magnate/'  in  the  unashamed  phrase  of  the  Copah 
Megaphone,  first  as  the  president's  assistant;  later,  as 


THE    STAR   OF   EMPIRE  ,  375 

first  vice-president  and  general  manager  of  the  system, 
in  the  Chicago  headquarters,  with  Mr.  Richard  Frisbie 
as  his  second  in  command  on  the  western  lines,  and  Mr. 
Charles  Edward  Adair  as  comptroller  and  chief  of 
finances  on  the  executive  committee  in  New  York. 

Ford's  prophecies  predicting  the  development  of  the 
new  empire  first  traversed  by  the  Western  Extension 
have  long  since  found  ample  fulfilment,  as  all  the 
world  knows.  Copah  gave  the  region  its  first  and  largest 
advertisement;  but  other  mining  districts,  with  their 
imperative  beckonings  to  a  food-producing  population, 
have  followed  in  due  course. 

It  was  early  in  June  of  the  year  marking  the  open 
ing  of  the  completed  Western  Extension  for  through 
Pacific  Coast  traffic  that  a  one-car  train,  drawn  by  the 
smartest  of  passenger  engines  in  charge  of  a  diminutive, 
red-headed  Irishman,  stormed  bravely  up  the  glistening 
steel  on  the  eastern  approach  to  Plug  Pass.  The  car  was 
the  rebuilt  Nadia;  and  in  obedience  to  a  shrill  blast  of 
the  cab  air-whistle,  Gallagher  brought  it  to  a  stand  on 
the  summit  of  the  mountain. 

Alicia  looked  more  than  ever  the  artist's  ideal  of  the 
American  womanly  felicities  when  Ford  lifted  her  from 
the  step  of  the  Nadia. 

"You  are  quite  sure  Mr.  Gallagher  won't  mind  ?"  she 
was  saying,  as  they  walked  forward  together. 

"Mind  ?  Wait  till  you  hear  what  he  says.  Michael  is 


376  EMPIRE    BUILDERS 

an  Irish  diamond  in  the  rough,  and  he  knows  when  he 
is  honored/' 

They  discovered  the  red-headed  little  man  industri 
ously  "oiling  around"  for  the  swift  glide  down  the  west 
ern  declivities. 

"Michael/5  said  the  first  vice-president,  "Mrs.  Ford 
thinks  she  would  like  to  take  the  Pannikin  loop  in  the 
cab  of  the  Six-eighty-eight.  Can  you  make  room  for 
us?" 

Gallagher  snatched  his  cap  from  his  fiery  head. 

"Could  we  make  room?  'Tis  by  the  blessing  av  the 
saints  that  I'm  a  little  man,  meself,  Missis  Foord,  and 
don't  take  up  much  room  in  the  c-yab.  And  as  f'r 
Johnny  Shovel,  he'll  be  riding  on  the  coal  f'r  the  pure 
playsure  av  ut.  My  duty  to  ye,  ma'am;  and  'tis  a  pity 
ut  isn't  a  black  night,  whin  the  swate  face  av  ye  would 
be  lighting  the  thrack  f'r  us." 

Ford  lifted  Alicia  to  the  gangway  and  made  her  com 
fortable  on  the  fireman's  box,  fixing  a  footbrace  for  her, 
and  giving  her  his  arm  for  a  shoulder  rest  when  Galla 
gher  sent  the  steam  whistling  through  the  cylinder- 
cocks  for  the  impulse  needful  to  start  the  downward 
rush. 

"  'With  a  michnai — ghignai — ' "  she  began ;  but  when 
the  engine  plunged  over  the  summit  and  the  matchless 
view  to  the  westward  came  suddenly  into  being,  the 
quotation  lapsed  in  a  long-drawn,  ecstatic  "0-o-oh !" 


THE    STAR    OF    EMPIRE  377 

"You  are  not  afraid,  are  you?"  said  the  bridegroom, 
man-like,  letting  her  feel  the  support  of  his  arm. 

"Afraid?  No,  indeed;  I  am  just  happy — happy! 
There  lies  the  world  before  us,  Stuart;  our  world,  be 
cause,  more  than  any  other  man's,  yours  were  the  brain 
that  conceived  it  and  the  hands  that  brought  it  to  pass. 
Let  us  go  down  quickly  and  possess  it.  Tell  Mr.  Galla 
gher  that  he  may  run  as  fast  as  ever  he  dares."  Then 
with  a  sigh  of  contentment  and  a  comfortable  nestling 
into  the  hollow  of  the  strong  arm  of  protection:  "Was 
there  ever  another  wedding  journey  just  like  ours,  Stu 
art,  dear?" 


THE  END 


14  DAY  USE 

•URN  TO  DESK  FROM  WfflCH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 


LD21A-50m-2  '71 
(P200lslO)476— A32 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


9(402s) 


M18057 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


m 


II 


win 


